Cirrus@Austlit

'Issue No 102 of the La Trobe Journal celebrates arts and popular culture, from the Melbourne premiere of Gustav Holst's opera Savitri in 1926, to the 1966 tour down under by stars of the British soap opera Coronation Street.

'The issue also looks at the career of Peter Hansen, who decorated the mansion Labassa, and tells the story behind the 'State of Victoria' gown designed for Victoria's centenary celebrations of 1934–35.

'The issue compares 19th-century illustrations and photographs capturing ancient sites in Egypt and Syria, and takes us from local commemorations of the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon to the pre-WWI courtship of left-wing activists Maurice Blackburn and Doris Hordern. It also provides an account of two countercultural bookshops established in Melbourne in the 1970s.' (Publication abstract)