Cirrus@Austlit

'The End of the Morning is the final and unfinished autobiographical novel by Charmain Clift, Australian writer and journalist whose literary life in Hydra was romanticised during the 60s. The book is published here for the first time, alongside an afterword by Nadia Wheatley, Clift’s biographer and editor of the book, plus a new selection of Clift’s weekly newspaper columns. According to Wheatley, the novel is what Clift regarded as her most significant work. Although she did not live to complete it, the manuscript has been revised and is presented as a novella.' (Introduction)   

'Charmian Clift was a novelist, travel writer, and essayist who, with her writer husband George Johnston, lived with their young family on the Greek island of Hydra from 1955 to 1964. One member of the artist community who gathered around them there, the young Leonard Cohen, described them as having ‘a larger-than-life, a mythical quality’. That mythical quality was matched by real-life fame when, on their return to Australia, George’s novel My Brother Jack (1964) met with huge success, and Charmian became widely known and admired for her regular newspaper columns. Yet within five years of their return, both had died prematurely, Charmian by her own hand in 1969 and George of tuberculosis the following year.' (Introduction)

'More than 50 years after her, Australian writer Charmian Clift’s literary star continues to rise, in no small part thanks to the dedication of her editor and biographer, Nadia Wheatley.'  (Introduction)