by Jill Roe
28FP vol. 76, item 3 (paras on censorship), and SMH, 12/4/1935, p. 6; ‘Australian Women Who Write’, SMH, 4/4/1935, p. 12; ‘Novels of the Bush’, Australian Mercury, Jul. 1935, pp. 51–4, repr. A Gregarious Culture; ‘Authors’ Ball’, SMH, 15/4/1935, p. 4. The Writers’ League, formed by Left-wing writers and FAW dissidents in early 1935 with Katharine Susannah Prichard president and Jean Devanny secretary, was aligned with the Writers’ International and thus the Comintern, Julie Wells, ‘The Writers’ League: A Study in Literary and Working-class Politics’, Meanjin, 1987, no. 4, and Throssell, Wild Weeds and Wind Flowers, p. 255, n. 55.
29Sally Warhaft (ed.), Well May We Say . . . The Speeches that Made Australia, Black Inc., Melbourne, 2004; Arrow, Upstaged, p. 102; SMF to Nettie Palmer, 13/4/1935 [possibly 13/9/1935], FP vol. 24, part;* SMF to Mary Fullerton, 5/2/1935, FP vol. 17. Broadcasting in Sydney dates from the 1920s, but the ABC did not begin until 1932.
30Some scripts are at FP vol. 121A; part text school broadcast, FP vol. 76. SMF, ‘Jane Addams of Hull House’, Catholic Women’s Review, Aug. 1935.
31SMF to Jean Hamilton, 6/11/1935, and 3/12/1935, FP vol. 26. See ML MSS 6035/22 for a ms. of All That Swagger dated 1935.
32SMF to John Varney, 28/12/1935, FP vol. 15.
33SMF to RR and MDR, 16/12/1935, FP vol. 10.*
34SMF to Mary Fullerton, 11/4/1936, FP vol. 17; ‘A Woman’s Letter’, Bulletin, 5/8/1936, p. 4. Dymphna Cusack (1902–81), b. West Wyalong, NSW, graduated Univ. Sydney and taught until 1944, was a prolific and successful writer in several genres. The Prior Prize was established by the Bulletin in honour of Samuel Henry Prior (1869–1933), Bulletin editor 1914–33, awarded annually ‘for a work of literature’ (ADB vol. 11). Kylie Tennant (1912–88) was a successful and esteemed writer (OCAL).
35Herbert Basedow (1891–1933), anthropologist (ADB vol. 7); SMF to Alice Thacher Post, 23/1/1936, FP vol. 27;* Desley Deacon, Elsie Clews Parson: Inventing Modern Life, Chicago Univ. Press, Chicago, 1997, ch. 11. On Capricornia, see LN, Jan. 1935, FP vol. 3, repr. Diaries, pp. 13–15.
36‘My Career Goes Bung’, ts., 1935–36, ML MSS 6035/24; SMF to Elsie Belle Champion, 31/1/1936, FP vol. 8, and SMF to Alice Henry, 11/3/36, FP vol. 11, both.*
37SMF to Freda Barrymore, 23/5/1936 and 13/6/1936, Freda Barrymore to SMF, 29/5/1936, FP vol. 27; Bulletin, 24/6/1936, p. 35.
38FP vol. 4, pp. 78ff., repr. Diaries; SMF to Barber & McKeogh, New York, 22/6/1936, FP vol. 90.
39Bulletin, 17/6/1936, ‘Red Page’, and 24/6/1936, p. 9; Newspaper News, 1/8/1936 (FP vol. 121A).
40Bulletin, 29/7/1936, p. 2, and 19/8/1936, p. 2; SMF to Freda Barrymore, 18/7/1936, FP vol. 27; the various mss and tss, FP vol. 82 and ML MSS 6035/20–2.
41Telegram, 22/7/1936, FP vol. 28;* G. and S. Vallance to SMF, 23/7/1936, FP vol. 50; Mary Fullerton to SMF, 10/8/1936, FP vol. 17.
42 Bulletin, 29/7/1936, ‘Red Page’.
43 Bulletin, 30/12/1936, p. 9; All That Swagger, Sydney, 1936, pp. 494, 500.
44Mary Gilmore to SMF, 15/10/1936, Letters of Mary Gilmore, eds W. H. Wilde and T. Inglis Moore, Melbourne Univ. Press, Carlton, Vic, 1980, pp. 127–8.
45SMF to HHR, 9/9/1936, FP vol. 25.*
46Ambrose Pratt to SMF, 29/6/1936, 9/7/1936, FP vol. 27; SMF to Guy Innes, 18/8/1936, FP vol. 24. Ambrose Pratt (1874–1944), b. Forbes, NSW, was a writer and businessman (ADB vol. 11).
47FP vol. 56A (galleys); SMF to Snelling [printer], FP vol. 82; ‘Australian Author will Autograph’, FP vol. 121A, cuttings, n.d., and Diaries, p. 59, n. 55; M. E. West to SMF, 21/7/1936, FP vol. 9 (annotation); ‘I am Demmy Blake’, 445/41/2, and SMF to W. Stafford, 21/11/1936, FP vol. 20; SMF to Cpt. Peters, Melbourne, 1/11/1936 and 13/11/1936, FP vol. 82; ‘A Mixed Grill’, Bulletin, 18/11/1936, p. 40; SMF to Mary Fullerton, 18/12/ [1936], FP vol. 119; SMF to Hilary Lofting, 29/12/1936, FP vol. 28; SMF to Edward Bridle, 4/12/1936, FP vol. 47. Note: all reviews cited as from the press cuttings (unpaginated) assembled by SMF, FP vol. 121A.
48SMF to Innes Rose, 15/9/1936, Innes Rose to SMF, 7/10/1937 and 27/5/1937, FP vol. 82.
49Age, 29/12/1936, and ‘Australian Books Boom. 1936 Best Sellers’, DT(Sydney), 3/12/1936, FP vol. 121A. Ion Idriess (1889–1979) had published seven books and Frederick Joseph Thwaites (1908–1979) nine books by 1936 (ADB vols 9 and 12, Miller and Macartney (eds), Australian Literature).
50Advertiser, 16/1/1937, FP vol. 121A; [H. K. Prior] to SMF, 5/3/1937, FP vol. 82, and royalty statements, Bulletin and Angus & Robertson, FP vol. 82.
51North Queensland Register, 2/1/1937, FP vol. 121.
52A Southern Churchman, 1/2/1937, FP vol. 121A; SMF to Nell Malone, 22/4/1936, FP vol. 15.
53John McKellar, ‘The Miles Franklin Country’, Age, 6/3/1937, p. 6; ‘Lovable Pioneers’, Australian Women’s Weekly, 26/12/1936, FP vol. 121A. John McKellar (1881–1966) was a Scottish-born journalist and writer in Melbourne, associated with the Jindyworobak movement (OCAL).
54ML MSS 6035/31 (1927/1937 version of My Career Goes Bung); William Blake to Blackwood, 4/9/1936, ‘BBB and WB’ to Blackwood, 5/10/1937, and Blackwood to Mary Fullerton, 24/11/1937, ML 6329.
55Marjorie Barnard to Nettie Palmer, 4/8/1936; Sydney Literary Society, plays program, FP vol. 122, pp. 1–4, and Sydney Literary Society to SMF, 22/10/1936 (thanks); SMF to Guy Innes [4/9/1936], FP vol. 24; SMF’s talk on Spence is at FP vol. 64, see also Edith Hubbe, 25/8/1936, FP vol. 64; SMF to Lucy Spence Morice, 13/10/1936, FP vol. 22. George Ernest Bartlett Adamson (1884–1951) was a journalist (ADB vol. 13).
56Marjorie Barnard to SMF, 25/11/1936, FP vol. 32 (committee invitation); SMF to Ambrose Pratt, 2/5/1936, FP vol. 27. Ida Emily Leeson (1885–1964) was Mitchell Librarian 1932–46, and is first mentioned PD 1935 (Martin, Ida Leeson, p. 113, also ADB vol. 10). Dora Wilcox (1873–1953), a poet and playwright, was wife of William Moore, art historian (ADB vol. 10).
57SMF to Kate Baker, 25/4/1936 and 9/9/1936, Baker Papers.
58SMF to Alice Henry, 11/3/[1936], FP vol. 11.*
59Arrow, Upstaged, pp. 162–3; SMF to Guy Innes, [1936], FP vol. 24; SMF to HHR, 9/9/1936, FP vol. 25;* SMF to Nettie Palmer, 31/12/[1936], FP vol. 24;* and Vance Palmer to SMF, 24/12/1936, FP vol. 26.
60SMF to Kathleen Monypenny, 30/12/1936, FP vol. 22; SMF to Mab Maynard and Frieda Maynard, 8/6/1936, FP vol. 27. William John Miles (1871–1942), ‘a man with dangerous obsessions and money to spend’, was father of Sydney Bohemian Bea Miles (both ADB vol. 10). Kathleen Monypenny (1894–1971), Marjorie Barnard, obit., Australian Author, 4/2/1972 (unpaginated).
61The following account of Grattan’s second visit to Australia is a résumé from Roe, ‘“Tremenjus Good”’; FP vol. 23 has additional letters.
62SMF to C. H. Grattan, Monday, Grattan Papers. Hergenhan, No Casual Traveller, ch. 6, has a comprehensive account of Grattan’s presentations.
63C. H. Grattan to SMF, 8/5/1938 and 17/4/1938, FP vol. 23; C. Hartley Grattan, ‘Tom Collins’s “Such is Life”’, Australian Quarterly, Sept. 1937, pp. 67ff.; New York Times Book Review, 15/8/1937, pp. 8, 20, cited Munro, Wild Man of Letters, p. 189 (‘deeply offensive’). New editions of Jonah and Such Is Life finally appeared in 1945 and 1948 respectively.
64SMF to Edward Bridle, 4/12/1936, FP vol. 47, and SMF to Mollye Menken, 12/1/1937, FP vol. 29;* ‘The little prince’, ML 445/22.
65Dan Clyne, Hansard, 3/12/1936, p. 996; Diaries, p. 21 (20/12/1935).
66SMF to Dr Young, 1/1/1937, FP vol. 20. The Pischel party consisted of Emma, ‘Mrs Pischel, snr’ (apparently her sister-in-law Mrs William Pischel, not Emma’s mother, Julia, who died in 1936), Mrs William Pischel’s daughter-in-law, and Emma’s niece by marriage Hildegarde (Mrs Frederick E. Pischel), of Salt Lake City.
67SMF, Bulletin, 3/3/1937, p. 2 (Griffin died 11/2/1937); Best Australian One-Act Plays, eds W. Moore and T. I. Moore, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1937, and ML MSS 6035/2, also reviews, SMH, 28/8/1937, p. 12, and Bulletin 15/9/1937, p. 2; SMH, 20/2/1937, p. 10, and SMF to Mary Fullerton, 23/2/1937, FP vol. 17; Propeller, 1/
4/1937, p. 8.
68Such Is Life, Cape, London, 1937; SMF, ‘Such is Colonialism’, Bulletin, 26/5/1937, p. 8, repr. A Gregarious Culture; SMF to Kate Baker, 3/5/1937 and 11/5/1937,* Baker Papers. For Vance Palmer’s gentlemanly reply, see Bulletin, 30/6/1937, p. 8, which reveals that he consulted Edward Garnett (see ch. 3).
69Diaries, pp. 67–73, has her account.
70SMF to Freda Barrymore, 21/11/1936, FP vol. 27; Clune, quoted ADB vol. 13. Try Anything Once was published in 1933.
71Paul Wenz (1869–1939) grazier (ADB vol. 12), wrote Diary of a New Chum and Other Lost Stories (1908, repr. Collins/Angus & Robertson, N. Ryde, 1990, preface by Frank Moorhouse).
72SMF to Carrie Whelan, 22/7/1937, FP vol. 20.*
73Advertiser, 24/6/1937, Melbourne Herald, 6/7/1937, cuttings, FP vol. 121A (no pagination).
74FP, ML PX *D250/3; ‘The Moving Camera Clicks. From Kosciusko to the Sea, by Frank Clune’, Sydney Mail, 3/8/1938–7/9/1938; Sunday Advertiser, 24/6/1937, p. 8.
75Diaries, p. 82; Sunday Sun and Guardian, 8/8/1937, cuttings FP vol. 121A; SMF to Guy Innes, 17/8/1937, FP vol. 24 (coo-ee); Advertiser, 29/6/1937 (‘We interview two world roamers’), and SMF to SF, 30/6/1937, FP vol. 108; SMF to Lucy Spence Morice, 31/8/1937, FP vol. 22,* and Ida Leeson to SMF, 13/10/1938, FP vol. 29. Bob Buck (1881–1960) worked in central and northern Australia from 1905 (ADB vol. 7).
76‘Catherine Helen Spence’, FP vol. 64; SMF, ‘Rose Scott. Some Aspects of her Personality and Work’, The Peaceful Army: A Memorial to the Pioneer Women of Australia 1788–1938, ed. Flora Eldershaw, n.p., Sydney, 1938; Allen, Rose Scott, ch. 8. The second revision of Cockatoos was typed 17/8/1937–21/9/1937 (Roderick, Guard Book 6, Roderick Papers, pp. 38–9).
77Roe, ‘“Tremenjus Good”’; Mary Fullerton to SMF, 14/2/1937, FP vol. 17, and Lucy Spence Morice to SMF, 3/8/1937, FP vol. 22; SMF to Mary Fullerton, 5/8/1937, FP vol. 17; ‘Can an objective moral standard be set up in the present age?’, FP vol. 60.
78SMH, 2/2/1938, p. 8, and 4/2/1938, p. 4; Dymphna Cusack, ‘My Friendship with Miles Franklin’, Ink, no. 2, 50th anniversary issue of the Society of Women Writers, Sydney, 1977, p. 111; ‘Witty Collaboration by Telephone’, SMH(Women’s Supp.), 3/7/1939, (by Florence James, repr. North, Yarn Spinners). (Baron) John Wakehurst (1895–1970), ADB vol. 16. (Baron) Alexander Gowrie (1872–1955), ADB vol. 9.
79Marulan property: possibly ‘Glenrock’ (Caroline Simpson in Historic Homesteads of Australia, Cassell Australia, Stanmore, NSW, 1976; St John Ervine to SMF, 23/8/1939, FP vol. 14, and press clippings repr. North, Yarn Spinners, pp. 56–8).
80Cusack, ‘My friendship’; SMF to Nettie Palmer, 16/5/1938, Palmer Papers. The first Chair of Australian Literature was established at the Univ. of Sydney in 1962.
81Queanbeyan Age, 7/6/1938, p. 7, obit. for Aunt Annie; Propeller, 16/6/1938, p. 3 death of Miss Gillespie. No obit. for SF has been located to date; probably Miles was too upset to write one.
82Alice Henry to SMF, 3/7/1938, FP vol. 11, Mary Fullerton to SMF, 30/8/1938, FP vol. 7,* and SMF to Alice Henry, 11/10/1938, FP vol. 11; SMF to Mrs Grattan, 21/7/1938, Grattan Papers, Harry Ransom Colln, Univ. of Texas at Austin.
83SMF to Nettie Palmer, 21/7/1938, Palmer Papers.*
84SMF to Kate Baker, 27/10/1938, Baker Papers.*
85Alice Henry to SMF, 3/7/[1938], FP vol. 11.*
86SMF to Alice Henry, 11/10/1938.*
87Harley Matthews review: Reveille, Dec. 1938, p. 20. Broadcasts in 1938: ‘My Life and My Books’, FP vol. 76 (school broadcast 21/3/1938, part text); invited to broadcast on prominent people she has met, Sept. 1938, FP vol. 92; ‘Australian literature and its place in social reform’, 6/12/1938, FP vol. 77/2. Pescott review, Australian National Review, Jul. 1937, p. 78. Re Baker, SMF to Kate Baker, 27/10/1938, Baker Papers,* and 3/11/1938, 22/11/1938, 1/12/1938; Kate Baker to SMF, 1/11/1937, FP vol. 9A. Harley Matthews (1889–1968) served at Gallipoli and became a freelance journalist, later a vigneron (ADB vol. 10); Edward Pescott (1872–1954) was a teacher and botanist (AustLit).
88SMF to Alice Henry, 10/12/1938, FP vol. 115; SMF to Kate Baker, 15/11/1938, Baker Papers.
89SMF to Leonora Pease, 12/3/1938, FP vol. 13.* Pease spent a year in Paris after Vienna, returning to the US via Holland in 1940, and was last heard from in New York City (Leonora Pease to SMF, 3/7/1940, 15/1/1950, FP vol. 13).
Chapter 12 — Maintaining Our Best Traditions
1SMF to Phil and May Meggitt (UK), 6/7/1940, FP vol. 34.*
2SMH, 2/9/1939, p. 9 (amusements); SMF to H. N. Smith, 4/10/1939, FP vol. 29 (‘same old war’); SMF to Ian Mudie, 21/4/1942, FP vol. 36.* Louis Esson (1879–1943) was a dramatist (ADB vol. 8). West Australian-born Leslie Rees (1905–2000) was drama editor for the ABC from the late 1930s–66 (OCAL).
3SMF to Mabel Singleton et al., [7/4/1939], FP vol. 25.* Three Guineas was published in 1938.
4Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, 1939; SMF to Mary Fullerton et al., ‘St Valentine’s Day’, 1939, FP vol. 17. Stanley Melbourne Bruce (1883–1967), ADB vol. 7.
5Kate Baker to Victor Kennedy, 14/6/1939, quoted Roy Duncan, ‘Kate Baker: “Standard-bearer”’, ALS, May 1980, p. 384; De Berg interview, 1977; Barnes, Joseph Furphy, p. x.
6Annie Stewart’s letters and Miles’s replies Jan.–Mar. 1939 are at FP vol. 31, also corres. with Furphy’s son, Sam, and his wife, Mattie. Re the first incident, see Joseph Furphy to Annie Stewart, 13/5/1888 and 25/7/1888, ML MSS 3659/1, encl. 188.
7Joseph Furphy: The Legend of a Man and his Book, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1944, pp. 141 (re SMF), 116 (loneliness), 127 (assessments); Elizabeth Webby, ‘The Bush Hamlet’, TLS, 28/6/2002, p. 27.
8Bulletin, 23/8/1939, p. 2 (awards and judges, viz. F. D. Davison, H. M. Green and Louis Esson), also 30/8/1939, p. 37 (‘Melbourne chatter’, highlighting Kate Baker); SMF to Kate Baker, Monday night [Jun. 1939], Baker Papers; SMF to Kate Baker, 16/8/1939, FP vol. 9A. SMF to Mary Fullerton, 3/9/1939, repr. Diaries, pp. 123–6, is the best account. Malcolm Henry Ellis (1890–1969), Bulletin journalist and historian, published Lachlan Macquarie in 1947 (ADB vol. 14).
9M. H. Ellis to SMF, 25/8/1939, FP vol. 32; SMF to Jean Devanny, 30/8/1939, FP vol. 32;* SMF to Kate Baker, 16/8/1939, FP vol. 9A; SMF to Mary Fullerton, 20/9/1939, FP vol. 17.
10SMF to Kate Baker, 27/8/1939 and 30/8/1939, Baker Papers; Age, 10/5/1940, p. 8.
11Bulletin, 6/12/1939, p. 4; SMF to Kate Baker, 6/9/1939, Baker Papers.* The other winners were Frank Dalby Davison, Xavier Herbert, Ernestine Hill, Marjorie Clark; Nancy Keesing, SMH, 16/8/1981, p. 12 (corrective reply to Colin Roderick, ‘Author Would Have Scorned Handouts’, SMH, 8/5/1981, p. 6).
12Joseph Furphy, p. 183.
13SMF to R. G. Menzies, 5/7/1939,* and R. G. Menzies to SMF, 10/7/1939, FP vol. 32.* Robert Gordon Menzies (1894–1978), founder of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister of Australia 1950–66, first served as prime minister 26/4/1939–29/8/1941 (ADB vol. 15).
14Bulletin, 19/7/1939, p. 2; M. Barnard Eldershaw to SMF, 6/7/1939, FP vol. 32; Henrietta Drake-Brockman to SMF, 20/7/1939, and to W. G. Cousins, 20/8/[1939], ML MSS 3269 (Corres. files), vol. 156, pp. 339–41, and 22/2/[1940], FP vol. 33;* Frank Clune to W. G. Cousins, 22/7/1939, ML MSS 3659/1; SMF to Vance Palmer, 24/7/1939, Palmer Papers; SMF to Alice Henry, 6/8/[1939], FP vol. 115, and SMF to Mary Fullerton, 9/8/1939, FP vol. 119* (re press responses); St John Ervine to SMF, 23/8/1939, FP vol. 14.* Henrietta Drake-Brockman (1901–68) was a West Australian writer whose husband was an engineer and army officer (ADB vol. 14). Walter G. Cousins (1886–1949) was director of publishing and chairman of directors, Angus & Robertson 1933–49, Australian Booksellers Association, Book, 19[??] (ML).
15William Miller/Linklater (1867–1959), bushwhacker and writer (Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography); SMF to Mary Fullerton, 9/8/1939, FP vol. 119.*
16Tom Inglis Moore to SMF, 15/7/1940, FP vol. 29;* Miles Franklin, ‘“E”. The Full Story’, Bulletin, 15/5/1946, ‘Red Page’; Martin, Passionate Friends, pp. 151–2, 164. ‘E�
��: Mary Fullerton’s second name was Eliza.
17SMF to C. H. Grattan, 18/3/1940, FP vol. 23, and PD, 20/11/1940 (the waratah cup); Lulu Shorter, Heritage, ed. Joan Kerr, Art and Australia, E. Roseville, NSW, 1995; SMF to Mabel Singleton et al., [7/4/1939], FP vol. 25,* and David Marr, Patrick White: A Life, Random House, Milsons Point, NSW, 1991, p. 180. The waratah is the state flower of NSW. Michael Sawtell (1883–1971) was a bushman and Emersonian (ADB S); Richard Baker (1854–1941), ADB vol. 7; Lulu Shorter (1887–1989), ADB vol. 18, 2012. Patrick White (1912–1990) was living in England in the 1930s (OCAL).
18The shops were at 327–329 Penshurst St, Willoughby. Mary Fullerton to SMF, 18/1/1940, FP vol, 17. Mein Kampf was published in 1925.
19SMF to Kate Baker, 9/1/1940, FP vol. 9A; Kate Baker to CLF, 16/12/1940, NAA A 463, 1968/4278; SMF to Temby, 10/1/1940, Mackaness Papers; SMF to Temby, 7/11/1950, NAA A 463, 1968/4278; E. E. Pescott, 2/1/1940, ML MSS 3659/1. Henry Stanley Temby (1890–c.1965) was appointed secretary to the CLF in 1938 (NSW BMD, CLF records).
20SMF to J. K. Moir, 12/9/1940, J. K. Moir Colln; J. K. Moir to SMF, 20/9/1940, FP vol. 34. SMF to Dymphna Cusack, 12/3/1940, Cusack Papers. John Kinmont Moir (1893–1958) was a bibliophile and literary patron (ADB vol. 15).
21SMF to C. H. Grattan, 18/3/1940, FP vol. 23; SMF to H. S. Temby, 21/8/1940, FP vol. 90.
22PD, 7/5/1940; the draft protest from FP vol. 46.* Dark–SMF corres. 27/4/1940–15/6/1940 is at FP vol. 26.
23D. Heath, ‘Literary Censorship’, History of the Book in Australia, vol. 2, eds Martyn Lyons and John Arnold, Univ. of Qld Press, St Lucia, Qld, 2001, p. 72. Sawtell–SMF corres. is at FP vols 32 and 34. Brave New World was published in 1932.
24P. R. Stephensen to SMF, 14/6/1940, ML MSS 3659/1, encl. 450.
25Nettie Palmer to SMF, 25/5/1940, and SMF to Nettie Palmer, 31/5/1940, both FP vol. 24.*