Review of various

In the 'Short Notices' of the last issue of Australian Literary Studies Eunice Hanger's edition, with an introduction, of three Australian plays, Khaki Bush and Bigotry: Three Australian Plays (Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 274 pp., paper-bound, $3.50) was listed as a reprint. As Miss Hanger informs me, and as the introduction makes clear, the plays were 'hitherto unpublished' though they 'have now had a number of productions, and have proved themselves on the stage'. These facts suggest how difficult it is to have Australian plays printed as well as produced, how few plays have achieved print, and how important it is to conserve scripts of unpublished plays. It was a surprise to this reviewer to learn that Sumner Locke Elliott's 'Rusty Bugles', a fairly 'well known' play, had never been printed, although two novels by him have recently appeared. The other two plays included in Miss Hanger's edition are Ray Mathew's 'The Bunyip' and Jack McKinney's 'The Well' (the first act of the latter having been published as a one-act play in Australian One-Act Plays, Adelaide, Rigby Ltd, 1962, Vol. I).