Cirrus

Search, Explore, Discover

The World War I in Australian Literary Culture project provides a range of different ways to explore the information collected.
– Use the AustLit advanced search to limit searches to World War I data by selecting the project from the drop down options in the Project section of the search form.
– Keyword searching - enter a name, title, or subject term into the search box on any AustLit page to find author or work records. These search results will not be limited to the project's collection.
– Explore the curated exhibitions that present various aspects of the content. Click on the links to the left on this page to access information on particular themes. More of these curated collections of data will be made available as the project continues.
– Below are some predefined searches that lead you directly to a collection of AustLit records relating to a specific theme or having particular characteristics related to World War I.
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Women writers and the war

Explore this collection of records by women writers

How have women writers represented World War I? From the ultra patriotic to grief struck, women writers wrote pro- and anti-war works of literature.
Click here to explore the lives, and more than 1000 works, of the almost 300 women writers who have written about the war. Discover writers like Millicent Armstrong, a nurse who served in France and was the first woman to receive a soldier settler block of land. She became a successful playwright in the 1920s. Mary Gilmour wrote moving poetry, and Mabel Forrest's Brisbane-based and Sydney Mail war poetry explored a range of war experiences.

From The Sydney Mail, 1917.

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Wounded and Missing Mabel Forrest , 1917 single work poetry

Read the war literature of Queensland poet, Mabel Forrest, by exploring her AustLit record starting with this link that draws together her poems on subjects of war.

St Martin's Theatre (London) programme from 1934, the year 'Drought' was performed (not for 'Drought').

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Drought M. S. Armstrong , 1924 single work drama

This play dealt with the difficulties faced by soldier farmers trying to make a living from the unproductive farmland.

From The Sydney Mail, 1915.

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Fourteenth July, 1915 'Rose De Boheme' , 1915 single work poetry

Agnes Rose-Soley, wrote rousing patriotic poetry under the pseudonym of Rose de Boheme, much of it published in The Sydney Mail.

Source: The Bulletin, 5 April, 1917, p. 3

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The Mother Mary Gilmore , 1917 single work poetry

The Mother.
Out in the street he lies –
Blood in his mouth,
Dust in his eyes.
I stood at the door
Where he went out,
Full-frown man,
Ruddy and stout.
I heard the sound
Of the marching feet,
Slow and steady,
Come down the street.
The beat of the drum
Was clods on the heart,
For all that the regiment
Looked so smart!
I heard the crackle
Of hasty cheers,
As they rose like the breaking
Of crushed tears.
And just for a moment,
As he went by,
I had sight of his face,
And the flash of his eye.
He died a hero’s death,
They said,
When they came to tell me
My boy was dead.
But out in the street
A dead dog lies;
Blood on his mouth
Dust in his eyes.
N.S.W Mary Gilmore

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Gallipoli Poetry

'On, Australians, On!'

From the oddly titled poem ''On, Australians, On : The Poem from which Our Heroes Who Landed at the Dardanelles Adopted Their War Cry 'On Australians' ", one of the earliest known poems on the subject of Gallipoli campaign, to the more recent reflections by contemporary poets such as Brett Dionysus the poetry of Gallipoli numbers more than 300 in AustLit. Explore the range of responses to the campaign here.
Another notable battle at Lone Pine has inspired only 6 poems.

Perhaps the most famous of Australian World War I novels.

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Novels and Novellas of World War I

From Ambrose Pratt's 1914 novel War in the Pacific to Steve Sailah's 2014 A Fatal Tide, the past 100 years has seen over 200 novels published that deal with World War One.
Click here to review all novels and novellas about World War I.

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Cirrus@Austlit

Women writers and the war

Gallipoli Poetry

Novels and Novellas of World War I

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