AustLit
Collected Essays of Walter Murdoch Containing Speaking Personally, Saturday Mornings, Moreover, The Wild Planet, Lucid Intervals
selected work
Latest Issues
Notes
-
Dedication: To V. C. M. 'Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear.'
Contents
- The Bloke, single work essay (p. 15-19)
-
On Being Australian,
single work
essay
(p. 330-333)A collection of essays by Australian writers was criticised in the British press for having insufficient 'native' content, thereby rendering it in no way distinctive from the work of English writers.Walter Murdoch asks: 'what is the Australian writer to be allowed to be interested in, without being held to have forfeited his right to consider himself Australian?' Murdoch argues that Australians 'have the same right as Englishmen have to be interested in things which belong neither to Australia nor to England, but to the world.'
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Literary Appreciation, American-Style : Channels of Influence in Early Twentieth-Century Australia
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 283-298)'There has been no comprehensive treatment of American influence on Australian English-teaching in high schools and universities prior to the Second World War. Its retrospective invisibility is a consequence, not of its real absence, but of the colonial publishing arrangements that made it difficult or impossible to import American educational books into Australia during that period.
This paper will explore two of the ways in which, despite these restrictions, American ideas and practices of literary criticism did manage to penetrate Australian English teaching before the Second World War. One of these was by the importing of American authors and texts in British imprints. British publishers like Harraps were particularly active in this area: I estimate that something like 40% of their English education list, 1901-1930, comprised American-authored books, co-published in the US by D.C. Heath, Thomas Crowell, Frederick Stokes, Houghton-Mifflin and others. The activities of the Australasian Publishing Company, established as a distribution agency by Harraps in 1916 in collaboration with Houghton-Mifflin and Constable, were especially relevant in this regard.
Other, more individual channels of influence were important too: Ernest Moll, for example, an Adelaide-born scholar and poet, graduated from Harvard, and spent his whole academic career lecturing at the University of Oregon, where he practised and wrote about literary appreciation (in the formal American sense). He also visited Australia regularly, including a two-year stint at the Sydney Teachers' College in 1939- 40, arranged by the then head of English George Mackaness. My conclusions will be based on an inspection of the large collection of correspondence between Harrap and Houghton-Mifflin at Harvard University, interviews with former employees of Harraps and of the Australasian Publishing Company, and the Ernest Moll Papers in the NLA.' (Author's abstract)
-
Recent Australian Publications
1938
single work
review
— Appears in: Desiderata , November no. 38 1938; (p. 36-37)
— Review of Beauty Imposes : Some Recent Verse 1938 selected work poetry ; Free and Easy Land 1938 single work non-fiction ; "This Roundabout" 1981 selected work poetry ; Collected Essays of Walter Murdoch Containing Speaking Personally, Saturday Mornings, Moreover, The Wild Planet, Lucid Intervals 1938 selected work essay ; Wind in the Spring 1938 single work novel
-
Recent Australian Publications
1938
single work
review
— Appears in: Desiderata , November no. 38 1938; (p. 36-37)
— Review of Beauty Imposes : Some Recent Verse 1938 selected work poetry ; Free and Easy Land 1938 single work non-fiction ; "This Roundabout" 1981 selected work poetry ; Collected Essays of Walter Murdoch Containing Speaking Personally, Saturday Mornings, Moreover, The Wild Planet, Lucid Intervals 1938 selected work essay ; Wind in the Spring 1938 single work novel -
Literary Appreciation, American-Style : Channels of Influence in Early Twentieth-Century Australia
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 283-298)'There has been no comprehensive treatment of American influence on Australian English-teaching in high schools and universities prior to the Second World War. Its retrospective invisibility is a consequence, not of its real absence, but of the colonial publishing arrangements that made it difficult or impossible to import American educational books into Australia during that period.
This paper will explore two of the ways in which, despite these restrictions, American ideas and practices of literary criticism did manage to penetrate Australian English teaching before the Second World War. One of these was by the importing of American authors and texts in British imprints. British publishers like Harraps were particularly active in this area: I estimate that something like 40% of their English education list, 1901-1930, comprised American-authored books, co-published in the US by D.C. Heath, Thomas Crowell, Frederick Stokes, Houghton-Mifflin and others. The activities of the Australasian Publishing Company, established as a distribution agency by Harraps in 1916 in collaboration with Houghton-Mifflin and Constable, were especially relevant in this regard.
Other, more individual channels of influence were important too: Ernest Moll, for example, an Adelaide-born scholar and poet, graduated from Harvard, and spent his whole academic career lecturing at the University of Oregon, where he practised and wrote about literary appreciation (in the formal American sense). He also visited Australia regularly, including a two-year stint at the Sydney Teachers' College in 1939- 40, arranged by the then head of English George Mackaness. My conclusions will be based on an inspection of the large collection of correspondence between Harrap and Houghton-Mifflin at Harvard University, interviews with former employees of Harraps and of the Australasian Publishing Company, and the Ernest Moll Papers in the NLA.' (Author's abstract)
