A Lost Satire on the 1890s Bulletin Writers and Bohemians

Abstract

In January and February 1983, while researching David McKee Wright's poetry and critical writings, I discovered among his papers (donated by his daughter April Hersey) in the Fisher Library of Sydney University a great number of drafts and manuscripts gathered up in a bundle with galley-proofs of a long poem entitled 'Apollo in George Street, A Satire'. The work was a satire on the Bulletin and other Bohemians—poets, journalists, novelists, editors and illustrators who made up the colleagues of David McKee Wright, editor of the Red Page of the Bulletin from around 1916 until his retirement in 1926. Some preliminary cataloguing of the material had been done by Ross Coleman (husband of Wright's grand-daughter), about the time the documents were lodged at the Library in 1975; Ross Coleman was at that time employed in the Fisher Library.