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Cover image courtesy of publisher.
y separately published work icon Miss Peabody's Inheritance single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1983... 1983 Miss Peabody's Inheritance
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In this potent tale of love and loneliness, Elizabeth Jolley has woven two parallel stories into a dazzlingly original novel. Arabella Thorne is a brilliant, witty and accomplished woman. The exotic tale of this flamboyant eccentric and her European travels – with jealous secretary and shy schoolgirl protégée – is the inheritance that transforms the uneventful suburban life of Miss Peabody.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

18005853
18005672

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Unit Suitable For

AC: Senior Secondary (Literature Unit 2)

Themes

belonging, connection to place, friendship, isolation, literature, love, marginalisation, otherness, women

General Capabilities

Critical and creative thinking, Literacy

Notes

  • 'The final draft of this novel was completed during Jolley's time of being Writer in Residence at the Western Australian Institute of Technology.

    This book is offered as an expression of thanks to the Artist in Residence Committee and, in particular, to Derek Holroyd, Brian Dibble, and Don Grant.' (Source: 2015 UQP edition )

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Viking ,
      1984 .
      image of person or book cover 1303634825053058951.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 157p.
      ISBN: 0670479527
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Penguin ,
      1985 .
      Extent: 157p.
      ISBN: 014007743X (pbk.)
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Persea Books ,
      2012 .
      image of person or book cover 508086716499412665.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 157p.p.
      ISBN: 9780892553709, 0892553707
    • St Lucia, Indooroopilly - St Lucia area, Brisbane - North West, Brisbane, Queensland,: University of Queensland Press , 2014 .
      image of person or book cover 940344287960831986.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 168p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 24 December 2014
      ISBN: 978070225350 8
      Series: y separately published work icon UQP Modern Classics St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2013 8023624 2013 series - publisher novel
Alternative title: L'heritage de Miss Peabody
Language: French

Other Formats

  • Also braille, sound recording.

Works about this Work

Reissues Kate Livett , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Long Paddock , vol. 75 no. 3 2016;

— Review of Miss Peabody's Inheritance Elizabeth Jolley , 1983 single work novel ; A Descant for Gossips Thea Astley , 1960 single work novel ; Poor Fellow My Country Xavier Herbert , 1975 single work novel ; Journey to Horseshoe Bend T. G. H. Strehlow , 1969 single work biography
The Watertight Sieve Ellena Savage , 2013 single work essay
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 16 2013; (p. 44-45)
[Essay] : Miss Peabody’s Inheritance Delys Bird , 2013 single work essay
— Appears in: Reading Australia 2013-;

'Elizabeth Jolley’s personal and publishing history is well known. She migrated from the United Kingdom to Western Australia with her husband, Leonard, and their three children in 1959, when Leonard was appointed Librarian at the University of Western Australia. Although she had been writing from a young age and had brought a great deal of manuscript material with her, it was not until the late 1960s that she had stories published. Fremantle Press published her first book, Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories(1976). More publications followed in rapid succession, and Miss Peabody’s Inheritance and Mr Scobie’s Riddle, Jolley’s third and fourth novels, both appeared in 1983. (Introduction)

Elizabeth Jolley : A Cross-Cultural Life in Writing Barbara Milech , Brian Dibble , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , vol. 2 no. 2010;

'Elizabeth Jolley is one of Australia's most significant writers: she published some two dozen books of fiction, essays and radio dramas, won every major Australian literary award, received four honorary doctorates, was awarded the Order of Australia for service to Australian Literature in 1988, and was named an Australian 'National Living Treasure' in 1997.

Her career has its roots in the UK, the place of her birth, schooling and early marriage. In 1959 she travelled with her three children and her husband to Perth, Western Australia, where Leonard Jolley took up a position as foundation Librarian of the University of Western Australia. She brought with her a trunk full of unpublished/rejected manuscripts which provided the initial materials from which she developed her published fictions and essays in Australia.

This article explores the institutional frameworks in Australia which enabled Jolley - a constant writer from childhood - to develop, in David Carter's phrase, 'a career in writing' from the mid-1970s onwards. It argues that Jolley rewrote her foundation manuscripts (written in another country) both to imagine Australian lives and to conform to Australian publishers' requirements. In doing so, it traces how the fiction and essays translate the experience of migration/exile, often thematised through the recurrent image of being 'on the edge,' into the particular and powerful ethic of love that informs Jolley's writing.' (Author's abstract)

Reading Institutional Women : A Nexus Approach to Bourdieu, Summer Heights High, and the Fiction of Elizabeth Jolley Larissa McLean-Davies , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October/November vol. 24 no. 3-4 2009; (p. 66-78)
The essay uses Bourdieu's theories to show the ways in which some key female characters in institutions in Lilley's Summer Heights High and Jolley's fiction support the workings of institutional patriarchal power. In the final section, the author draws on the concept of 'heterotopia', in order to discuss the ways in which 'these texts contest masculine institutional paradigms, and explore the limits and possibilities of the alternative views offered by these fictions' (74).
[Review] The Bodysurfers Brian Edwards , 1985 single work review
— Appears in: Landfall , June vol. 39 no. 2 1985; (p. 213-223)

— Review of Fly Away Peter David Malouf , 1982 single work novella ; The Bodysurfers Robert Drewe , 1983 selected work short story ; An Item from the Late News Thea Astley , 1982 single work novel ; The Cure Peter Kocan , 1983 single work novel ; White Stag of Exile Thomas Shapcott , 1984 single work novel ; The State of the Art : The Mood of Contemporary Australia in Short Stories 1983 anthology short story ; Kewpie Doll Barbara Hanrahan , 1984 single work novel ; The Bellarmine Jug : A Novel Nicholas Hasluck , 1984 single work novel ; Harland's Half Acre David Malouf , 1984 single work novel ; Woman in a Lampshade Elizabeth Jolley , 1983 selected work short story ; Miss Peabody's Inheritance Elizabeth Jolley , 1983 single work novel
Narrative Ambiguity Peter Pierce , 1983 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 19 November 1983; (p. 18)

— Review of Miss Peabody's Inheritance Elizabeth Jolley , 1983 single work novel
Tangled Tale of Repression, and of Women in Love with Women Susan Wyndham , 1983 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 29 October 1983; (p. 42)

— Review of Miss Peabody's Inheritance Elizabeth Jolley , 1983 single work novel
[Review] Miss Peabody's Inheritance William Noonan , 1983 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian Magazine , 22-23 October 1983; (p. 14)

— Review of Miss Peabody's Inheritance Elizabeth Jolley , 1983 single work novel
[Review] Miss Peabody's Inheritance Thomas M. Disch , 1984 single work review
— Appears in: The New York Times Book Review , 18 November 1984; (p. 14)

— Review of Miss Peabody's Inheritance Elizabeth Jolley , 1983 single work novel
A Scattered Catalogue of Consolation Elizabeth Jolley , 2006 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Learning to Dance : Elizabeth Jolley : Her Life and Work 2006; (p. 17-53)
'I Cannot Antagonize People When I Depend on Them' : Resistance and Reconciliation in Elizabeth Jolley's 'Miss Peabody's Inheritance' Carmen Arzua , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reconciliations 2005; (p. 167-174)
Jolley's Women Bronwen Levy , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 24 no. 1 2009; (p. 111-120)
The essay about Jolley's women 'looks at the ways in which Jolley represents women's longing for other women; it argues that this longing is central to her representation of female characters and the feminine condition. Jolley's literary style, her writing method, makes this question of longing and desire both complex and ambiguous' (112).
Reading Institutional Women : A Nexus Approach to Bourdieu, Summer Heights High, and the Fiction of Elizabeth Jolley Larissa McLean-Davies , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October/November vol. 24 no. 3-4 2009; (p. 66-78)
The essay uses Bourdieu's theories to show the ways in which some key female characters in institutions in Lilley's Summer Heights High and Jolley's fiction support the workings of institutional patriarchal power. In the final section, the author draws on the concept of 'heterotopia', in order to discuss the ways in which 'these texts contest masculine institutional paradigms, and explore the limits and possibilities of the alternative views offered by these fictions' (74).
Elizabeth Jolley : A Cross-Cultural Life in Writing Barbara Milech , Brian Dibble , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , vol. 2 no. 2010;

'Elizabeth Jolley is one of Australia's most significant writers: she published some two dozen books of fiction, essays and radio dramas, won every major Australian literary award, received four honorary doctorates, was awarded the Order of Australia for service to Australian Literature in 1988, and was named an Australian 'National Living Treasure' in 1997.

Her career has its roots in the UK, the place of her birth, schooling and early marriage. In 1959 she travelled with her three children and her husband to Perth, Western Australia, where Leonard Jolley took up a position as foundation Librarian of the University of Western Australia. She brought with her a trunk full of unpublished/rejected manuscripts which provided the initial materials from which she developed her published fictions and essays in Australia.

This article explores the institutional frameworks in Australia which enabled Jolley - a constant writer from childhood - to develop, in David Carter's phrase, 'a career in writing' from the mid-1970s onwards. It argues that Jolley rewrote her foundation manuscripts (written in another country) both to imagine Australian lives and to conform to Australian publishers' requirements. In doing so, it traces how the fiction and essays translate the experience of migration/exile, often thematised through the recurrent image of being 'on the edge,' into the particular and powerful ethic of love that informs Jolley's writing.' (Author's abstract)

Last amended 25 Nov 2019 15:06:50
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