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Issue Details: First known date: 2014... 2014 Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This is the compelling story of Jean Galbraith (1906-1999), one of Australia's most influential botanists and writers on nature, plants, and gardens. As a garden writer, Galbraith was particularly notable for spreading knowledge of Australian flora and encouraging the cultivation of native plants in home gardens. As a botanist, she wrote accessible field guides on Australian wildflowers that made a vital contribution to the conservation of native plants. She conveyed the wonders of nature to generations of children through her child-centered stories of adventures in the natural world. Her nature writing evoked the spirit of places she knew well and introduced readers to the beauty of the Australian bush. During a writing career that began in the mid-1920s and spanned 70 years, Jean Galbraith developed new forms of garden writing in Australia and she turned botanical writing into a literary art. Her writing reached multiple audiences, both national and international: gardeners in Britain and America were intrigued by lyrical articles evoking the beauty of Australian flora, while field naturalists regarded her wildflower guides as 'glove box Bibles.' The book also explores the relationship between a writer and her place, the Australian valley of the Latrobe River in Gippsland, bordered by the foothills of the Great Dividing Range to the north and the Strzelecki Ranges to the south, where temperate rainforest can still be found in the folds of the hills. From her home in Gippsland, inspired by her surroundings, Jean Galbraith put her vision of nature into words and helped Australians of all ages to see their own landscapes in new ways. Along with looking at the life of a gifted writer who had a passion for nature, and an urge to share and conserve the beauty around her, important themes in Australia's 20th-century botanical, gardening, and conservation history are also explored. ' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: To Jean Galbraith

    Enveloped

    By the scent

    Of native mint

    I stepped into fantasy's reality -

    A garden of love and lingering

    Where beauty and wilderness tangle,

    Through a gate where time bends

    Is it now of then?

    ...an hour or a year?

    The air dripped with green and silver

    But the blossoms burst over it all.

    A mirror of the garden's sparkle

    Were her eyes

    Surrounded by fading walls and books

    She, too, is growing worn

    But warm!

    Warm as a fire's welcome

    With its black kettle steaming.

    –Julie Langford

    (written after a visit to Jean Galbraith's garden)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Clayton, Murrumbeena - Oakleigh - Springvale area, Melbourne South East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Monash University Publishing , 2014 .
      image of person or book cover 1369598391163341055.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 292p.
      Description: illus.
      Note/s:
      • Published 13 August 2014
      ISBN: 9781922235398

Works about this Work

[Review Essay] Jean Galbraith: Writer in a Valley Kylie Mirmohamadi , 2016 single work essay review
— Appears in: Victorian Historical Journal , June vol. 87 no. 1 2016; (p. 173-174)
'Some way into her meticulously researched biography of Jean Galbraith, Meredith Fletcher mentions an interaction in the professional life of this influential naturalist, botanist and garden writer. Galbraith, having been asked by her friend Eva West to help prepare Victorian Girl Guides and their rangers for their naturalist badges, suggested some changes to the internationally prepared test to bring it into line with Australian bush conditions. Working from her knowledge of Australian eucalypts, she queried the merits of identifying a tree from a distance, commenting to her friend and mentor, John Inglis Lothian, that ‘no experienced botanist would undertake to recognise a tree at fifty yards—and it cannot always be done with certainty even if one lived among the trees’ (p. 51). As minor as this event was, it seems to me to encapsulate the Jean Galbraith that emerges in these pages: her attention to detail, her ability to ‘read’ and to learn from her experiences and observations of local environments, her firm but understated belief in her own hardwon knowledge, and her pedagogical commitment.' (Introduction)
[Review] Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Anne Latreille , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , May vol. 40 no. 2 2016; (p. 245-247)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
Review : Jean Galbraith: Writer in a Valley Kate Murphy , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Historical Studies , vol. 46 no. 2 2015; (p. 334)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
Review : Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley. Susan K. Martin , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Historical Studies , vol. 46 no. 2 2015; (p. 332-333)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
'Jewel Bright across the Air' Dina Ross , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 366 2014; (p. 18-19)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
'Jewel Bright across the Air' Dina Ross , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 366 2014; (p. 18-19)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
Review : Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley. Susan K. Martin , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Historical Studies , vol. 46 no. 2 2015; (p. 332-333)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
Review : Jean Galbraith: Writer in a Valley Kate Murphy , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Historical Studies , vol. 46 no. 2 2015; (p. 334)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
[Review] Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Anne Latreille , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , May vol. 40 no. 2 2016; (p. 245-247)

— Review of Jean Galbraith : Writer in a Valley Meredith Fletcher , 2014 single work biography
[Review Essay] Jean Galbraith: Writer in a Valley Kylie Mirmohamadi , 2016 single work essay review
— Appears in: Victorian Historical Journal , June vol. 87 no. 1 2016; (p. 173-174)
'Some way into her meticulously researched biography of Jean Galbraith, Meredith Fletcher mentions an interaction in the professional life of this influential naturalist, botanist and garden writer. Galbraith, having been asked by her friend Eva West to help prepare Victorian Girl Guides and their rangers for their naturalist badges, suggested some changes to the internationally prepared test to bring it into line with Australian bush conditions. Working from her knowledge of Australian eucalypts, she queried the merits of identifying a tree from a distance, commenting to her friend and mentor, John Inglis Lothian, that ‘no experienced botanist would undertake to recognise a tree at fifty yards—and it cannot always be done with certainty even if one lived among the trees’ (p. 51). As minor as this event was, it seems to me to encapsulate the Jean Galbraith that emerges in these pages: her attention to detail, her ability to ‘read’ and to learn from her experiences and observations of local environments, her firm but understated belief in her own hardwon knowledge, and her pedagogical commitment.' (Introduction)
Last amended 20 Oct 2015 11:46:26
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