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Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'FOUR Australian women writing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a time when stories of bush heroism and mateship abounded, a time when a writing career might be an elusive thing for a woman.

'Friends and Rivals is a vivid and engaging account of the intersecting and entwined lives of Ethel Turner, author of the much loved Seven Little Australians; Barbara Baynton, who wrote of the harshness of bush life; Nettie Palmer, essayist and critic; and Henry Handel Richardson, of The Getting of Wisdom and The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney fame.

'Brenda Niall illuminates a fascinating time in Australia’s literary history and brings to life the remarkable women who made it so.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Text Publishing , 2020 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Ethel Turner : 'Fame - and Money Too', Brenda Niall , single work biography
Barbara Baynton : The Real Thing, Brenda Niall , single work biography
Henry Handel Richardson : The Unrelenting Self, Brenda Niall , single work biography
Nettie Palmer : Other People's Books, Brenda Niall , single work biography

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Nine Lives Brenda Niall , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Inside Story , June 2020;

'For one of Australia’s foremost biographers, the impulse to tell life stories has never gone away'

The Conditions of Art Susan Lever , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Inside Story , April 2020;

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography
'Award-winning biographer Brenda Niall throws fresh light on four intriguing women writers'
Books of the Year 2020 : Year A Look Back at Some of the Year's Finest Works Sarah Holland-Batt , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 427 2020;
Unlikely Scribes Quartet Jim Davidson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 16 May 2020; (p. 17)

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography

'Mateship is so central to the traditional view of Australia that John Howard wanted it written into the preamble of the Constitution. But Brenda Niall asserts in Friends & Rivals, a fine account of four female writers, that “mateship is the antithesis of individualism. When women question or confront their destiny, cracks appear.” Half a beat behind The Bulletin writers — rhapsodising about mateship in “the real Australia” — there were several women who ignored it, worked their way around it and, in one case, challenged it directly.' (Introduction)

Friends and Rivals and the Ocean in the Shell Andrew Hamilton , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 19 April vol. 30 no. 8 2020;

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography
'In Friends and Rivals Brenda Niall brings together four significant Australian women writers. Between them they published works from the 1890s to the 1950s. Ethel Turner and Barbara Baynton were from NSW. Nettie Palmer and Henry Handel Richardson were from Victoria, both schooled at Presbyterian Ladies College.'(Introduction)
Brenda : Niall Friends and Rivals Felicity Plunkett , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 18-24 April 2020;

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography

'“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.” The eponymous protagonist of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient imagines a mapping of self that traces the hidden and intimate and reveals how we are “marked by nature” and by the flames of connection. It’s not enough “just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books.”' (Introduction)

Outliers : Intersections in Australian Literature Kerryn Goldsworthy , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 421 2020; (p. 28-29)

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography

'Armed with more than half a century’s worth of knowledge, experience, the fermentation of ideas and approaches in literary history and criticism over that period, and her own formidable reputation as a scholar and teacher of Australian literature, Brenda Niall returns in her latest book to the territory of her earliest ones. In Seven Little Billabongs: The world of Ethel Turner and Mary Grant Bruce (1979), Niall broke new ground not just in writing a serious and scholarly full-length treatment of Australian children’s literature, but also in departing from the orthodox biographical tradition of focusing on a single figure.'  (Introduction)

Friends and Rivals and the Ocean in the Shell Andrew Hamilton , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 19 April vol. 30 no. 8 2020;

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography
'In Friends and Rivals Brenda Niall brings together four significant Australian women writers. Between them they published works from the 1890s to the 1950s. Ethel Turner and Barbara Baynton were from NSW. Nettie Palmer and Henry Handel Richardson were from Victoria, both schooled at Presbyterian Ladies College.'(Introduction)
Unlikely Scribes Quartet Jim Davidson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 16 May 2020; (p. 17)

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography

'Mateship is so central to the traditional view of Australia that John Howard wanted it written into the preamble of the Constitution. But Brenda Niall asserts in Friends & Rivals, a fine account of four female writers, that “mateship is the antithesis of individualism. When women question or confront their destiny, cracks appear.” Half a beat behind The Bulletin writers — rhapsodising about mateship in “the real Australia” — there were several women who ignored it, worked their way around it and, in one case, challenged it directly.' (Introduction)

The Conditions of Art Susan Lever , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Inside Story , April 2020;

— Review of Friends and Rivals : Four Great Australian Writers Brenda Niall , 2020 selected work biography
'Award-winning biographer Brenda Niall throws fresh light on four intriguing women writers'
Books of the Year 2020 : Year A Look Back at Some of the Year's Finest Works Sarah Holland-Batt , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 427 2020;
Nine Lives Brenda Niall , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Inside Story , June 2020;

'For one of Australia’s foremost biographers, the impulse to tell life stories has never gone away'

Last amended 14 Feb 2024 11:07:21
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