AustLit logo

AustLit

NLA image of person
Manning Clark Manning Clark i(A34035 works by) (a.k.a. C. M. H. Clark; Charles Manning Hope Clark)
Born: Established: 3 Mar 1915 Burwood, Ashfield - Burwood area, Sydney Inner West, Sydney, New South Wales, ; Died: Ceased: 24 May 1991 Canberra, Australian Capital Territory,
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Manning Clark was born in Sydney and attended Melbourne Grammar School before completing a BA at the University of Melbourne in 1938. Clark studied for a short period at Oxford, beginning a thesis on Alexis de Tocqueville, but returned to Australia without a degree. While working as a history teacher at Melbourne Grammar School, Clark completed his thesis and was awarded an MA from the University of Melbourne in 1944. By this time he was teaching at the University of Melbourne. In 1949 he was appointed professor of history at Canberra University College (now the Australian National University) and remained there for the rest of his career.

In Canberra Clark began to concentrate on Australian history and published a number of bibliographies in the 1950s, but his best-known work, A History of Australia, began its multi-volume publication in 1962. Five more volumes appeared during the next three decades, the last in 1987, completing the coverage of the years between 1788 and 1945. Despite this momentous achievement, Clark has been criticised for his pessimism, inaccuracies and idealism. But he has also drawn an equal number of supporters who point to the power of his personal view of Australia's development.

While Clark's reputation is based primarily on his historical writing, his other writing includes a biography of Henry Lawson, a collection of short stories and two volumes of autobiography. Clark's view that Australia is Henry Lawson 'writ large' is expanded in the fifth volume of A History of Australia. Other writers, such as Joseph Furphy, Henry Handel Richardson and James McAuley (qq.v.) significantly influenced Clark's vision of Australia.

Clark won a number of awards, including several for his biography The Puzzles of Childhood, and was made AC in 1975. During his career, he was one of Australia's few high-profile intellectuals and academics, appearing regularly in support of many national, environmental and cultural movements. Manning Clark died in 1991.

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Among Clark's other writings are some memorial lectures, published in pamphlet form. Manning Clark's History of Australia: A Musical (1988) was written by Tim Robertson, John Romeril and Don Watson (qq.v.), with music by Martin Armiger and George Dreyfus.

    See also, The Young Green Tree (1998 film biography of Clark).

  • Manning Clark was included in the Bulletin's '100 Most Influential Australians' list in 2006.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Quest for Grace Ringwood : Viking , 1990 Z337596 1990 single work autobiography
1991 shortlisted NBC Banjo Awards NBC Banjo Award for Non-Fiction
y separately published work icon A History of Australia Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 1962-1987 Z1039986 1962-1987 single work non-fiction

'In 1962, the first volume of Manning Clark's "A History of Australia" appeared. For the next two-and-a-half decades Clark unfolded his tragic celebration of white Australian history. Today, the six-volume history is one of the masterpieces of Australian literature. It is also one of the most passionately debated visions of Australian history. Clark's Australians are men and women of lively goodwill and deep sinfulness, of generous idealism and unthinking brutality. He dramatizes the motivating forces of Australian life - cowardice and vision, cruelty and defiance, greatness of spirit and the spiritual vacuity of the suburbs - all of them locked in the unceasing struggle which builds a nation. Michael Cathcart has re-orchestrated Clark's epic narrative in this single volume. Every page of this abridgement rings with Manning Clark's voice. Here, at last, the general reader can encounter the deep resonances, pessimism and passion of Manning Clark - Australian historian and prophet. Michael Cathcart is co-author of "Mission to the South Seas: the Voyage of the Duff" and author of "Defending the National Tuckshop", a study of conservative responses to the Great Depression.' (Publication summary)

1982 winner National Book Council Award for Australian Literature Awarded for vol. 5.
1988 winner NBC Banjo Awards NBC Banjo Award Awarded for vol. 6.
1974 winner The Age Book of the Year Award Non-Fiction Prize Awarded for vol.3, published in 1973.
1968-1969 winner Ernest Scott Prize for Volume 2
1962-1963 joint winner Ernest Scott Prize Volume 1 - with Dr A Geoffrey Serle,The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of  Victoria 1851‐61
Last amended 2 Mar 2020 17:02:24
Influence on:
Quiros 1982 single work musical theatre
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X