Review of Australia's Writers by Graeme Kinross Smith, and Twentieth Century Sydney: Studies in Urban & Social History, ed. Jill Roe
Abstract
The epigraph to Australia's Writers is a quotation from Louis Esson ("Better bread and cheese and an idea than fortune and champagne and no idea") which seems to suggest an Essonian modesty on Graeme Kinross Smith's part. The idea is a good one, to provide 'Australians with an insight into [their literary] tradition, to oiler them a literary map with which to travel their country'. In practice, this means individual profiles of over fifty Australian writers (several balladists are grouped together, as also are Archibald and Stephens of the Bulletin), which characteristically begin with a quotation from the writer's work followed by a biographical sketch focused on the territory inhabited by the writer. Accompanying the text are a series of photographs, and concluding it is a select bibliography.
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Published 1 May 1982 in Volume 10 No. 3. Subjects: Sydney.
Cite as: Andrews, Barry Geoffrey. ‘Review of Australia's Writers by Graeme Kinross Smith, and Twentieth Century Sydney: Studies in Urban & Social History, ed. Jill Roe.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 10, no. 3, 1982, doi: 10.20314/als.2fd59913bb.