AustLit

'Michael Wilding’s essays on Marcus Clarke’s life and works, from his schooldays at Highgate with Gerard Manley Hopkins to membership of the Melbourne Bohemian Yorick Club with Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall, and his associations with the Chief of Police Captain Frederick Standish, the Irish nationalist politician and political prisoner Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, and the President of the Melbourne Public Library Sir Redmond Barry.

'Essays on His Natural Life, Clarke’s classic novel of the convict system; on Chidiock Tichborne the historical romp about the Catholic conspiracy to replace Elizabeth I on the English throne with Mary, Queen of Scots, and spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham’s espionage operation to expose it; on Old Tales of a Young Country about the early years of European settlement and the brutalities of the convict system; on his journalism ranging from exposés of the lives of Melbourne’s down and outs and homeless, to reminiscences of the Theatre Royal’s Café de Paris, and the spoof account of the Melbourne Cup written by aid of a camera obscura; on his literary essays, reviews and obituaries of Bret Harte, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens and Adam Lindsay Gordon; and on his short stories, ranging from realistic accounts of his up-country days on sheep stations and mining towns in the Wimmera, and speculations on the alternative futures of what life might have been, to sensational tales of Gothic horror, crime mystery, fantasies of opium dreams and mesmeric trances, and sophisticated literary experiment in his account of taking hashish, ‘Cannabis Obscura’ and the premature post-modernism of ‘The Author Haunted by His Own Creations’.'

‘This is scholarly and very entertaining.’
– Sydney Morning Herald

Source : publisher's blurb

'Australian crime fiction has a venerable tradition. Fergus Hume’s best-selling Melbourne murder novel, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, was published a year before the first of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories appeared in print. The appeal of those gaslight metropolitan mysteries has never wavered.' (Introduction)

'Wild About Books – essays on books and writing, about reading them and writing them, and publishing them and collecting them and preserving them in libraries. Essays about the shared experience of literature, the art and craft of writing, the pleasures of reading, the survival of five hundred years of print culture, together with reflections and suggestions on creative writing, on what to do, and how to do it, and on what I’ve done, and why I wrote this book and how I wrote that one, together with anecdotes from other writers’ experiences, from writers in person, and from the books they have written.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Peter Corris, the ‘Godfather of Australian crime fiction’, died in his sleep on 30 August 2018. His Godfather columns have been part of the Newtown Review of Books from the beginning, and we feel his loss keenly.' 

'Liz Lambastier was a successful travel writer. Did she write one last, unpublished book before she died? Plant is hired to find out. It soon becomes evident he is not the only one looking. What could the missing manuscript contain? Memories of the past to haunt a few people? Revelations of sexual opportunism or – these days – allegations of sexual harassment? Or, conspiracy theorist Fullalove speculates, undercover work in sensitive places? From poetry wars to the secret state, from old times good time girl Hilly Fann to Sasha her niece in the library, from monstrous media mogul Murray Brittan to Hacker the editor with nothing left to edit, Plant investigates.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Little Demon finds investigator Plant back in the iconic paradise of Byron Bay, hired by ageing rock ‘n’ roll journalist Rock Richmond whose computer with his history of the alternative communes has been stolen. Plant's rural retreat is invaded by conspiracy theorist Fullalove, who figures Richmond had been writing about rumoured Cold War arms caches and secret militias. Plant’s inquiries involve Rock's wife, a barrister specialising in drug cases, his girlfriend the mysterious Madimi, and caravan park owner and rifle club president Jake, a former army officer who used to run a commune.' (Publication summary)

'‘A life well and fully lived in a time when everything seemed possible, and the world seemed to be becoming more open, adventurous, generous and sensual, with the bonds of community and care supplanting the conformist and materialist individualism of the fifties. OK, it was a dream, but my God what a dream and Michael threw himself into the pursuit of that dream with demonic conviction and energy.’ –David Williamson

'‘A career that is remarkable for how prolific and innovative it has been in so many areas, whether Wilding was working as a short story writer, novelist, critic, editor, commentator, anthologist, or publisher. Few Australian writers have successfully ventured so much and for so long. Moreover, a surprising coherence exists among this variety. Wilding’s work is driven by his political radicalism, which seems as much to do with a probing, sometimes acrid, intelligence, as sentiment. While much of Wilding’s work has an autobiographical kernel, the scope is always broad, and the social and political dimensions of any story are essential elements. Wilding’s is the story of a maverick who worked within an establishment institution, yet was capable of opening his imagination both to the possibilities of academic life and to the more capacious narratives of Australian history, literary history, and contemporary life.’ –Peter Pierce, Dictionary of Literary Biography' (Publication summary)

'Suspended from his job when his politically incorrect email correspondence is leaked on the internet, Tim Vicars disappears. Is he hiding in shame?

'Is he running away from the erotic complexities of wife, mistress and literary agent?

'Or has his research project on decriminalizing marijuana provoked the growers, dealers and intelligence agencies to direct action?

'Plant, hired to find him, heads off into the Valley of the Weed.' (Publication summary)

'Meticulously using contemporary newspaper reports, court records, published memoirs, private letters and diaries, Michael Wilding tells the story of three troubled geniuses of Australian writing and their world of poetry and poverty, alcohol and opiates, horse-racing and theatre, journalism and publishing. Gordon shot himself, unable to pay the printer of his poems; Kendall ended up in a mental hospital after forging a cheque, and Clarke died bankrupt for a second time.' (Publication summary)

'A decade ago, Central Queensland University began a process of expansion. Like a number of regional universities, it began opening campuses in other cities beyond its Rockhampton base. When it opened a campus on the Gold Coast, David Myers moved the editorial offices of CQU Press there. I used to visit him, as we planned a series of anthologies of new writing. He showed me round the campus – the first university campus we had ever encountered without a library. We thought it was a bizarre aberration. We had no idea this was the way of the future.' (Introduction)