AustLit
Latest Issues
Contents
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Notes on the Publication of Dorothea MacKellar's Poem "My Country",
single work
(p. 114-118)'Australia's most popular poem may be Dorothea Mackellar's 'My Country'. This lyrical expression of national consciousness was first printed in the London Spectator of 5 September 1908. Since then it has been published in two books of Dorothea Mackellar's verse; it has appeared, in one form or another, in most anthologies of Australian verse; in school primers; and it has received popular accolade on countless concert platforms, from the disciplined lips of numberless singing and reciting children, from the waving hands of a host of elocutioneers, and from the mouth of a lately popular American president.'
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A Nice Little Business,
single work
(p. 119-123)
'Part of daily life in the mid-twentieth century, circulating libraries have left charmed traces.
'If you walked down a suburban Sydney street in the 1930s or 1940's it's likely you would have passed a small privately run library. Hundreds of 'circulating' or subscription libraries operated from the early twentieth century to the 1960s.'
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The Difficulties of Downsizing,
single work
column
(p. 124-125)
'The Tasmanian literary magazine Island (No.157, May 2019, p.8) has an insightful and amusing article by Pete Hay titled 'Are Books the New Zucchini?' By way of introduction to discussing the dilemma of anyone wishing to downsize their book collection, he talks about the gardener who, when finding himself with an overabundance of zucchinis, decides to offer them to his neighbours and friends - and instead of being met with gratitude, he is confronted with reluctance to accept anything more than a very small portion of his largesse. Refusing to waste good food the donor resorts to visiting them at 2 am and quietly leaving his surplus zucchinis on their doorsteps. Hay goes on to show that getting rid of surplus books is an equally hazardous and thankless task.'
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Oscar Wilde and the Centennial Magazine,
single work
(p. 125-127)'In an idle moment, among many during the COVID-19 pandemic, I pulled out my set of the Centennial Magazine which I'd bought about six years ago in Melbourne at a sale conducted by Australian Book Auctions. It still had the slip of paper in it with the auction number and catalogue entry which mentioned that it had been published monthly between August 1888 and September 1890 and: included fiction by Rolf Boldrewood, Catherine Spence, Francis Adams and Ada Cambridge; articles on social issues (such as by William Lane on sex and marriage); illustrations after Streeton, Roberts, McCubbin, and Condor among others and, improbably, the first appearance of Oscar Wilde's poem 'Symphony in Yellow'.'
