First arriving in Australia in 1926, Richard Pennington held the position of Australasian literary secretary for the International University Society which was based in Nottingham. Living in Sydney for four years, Pennington was 'well known' in local literary circles and established a friendship with the poet Christopher Brennan (q.v.). Brennan was said to have 'aroused' the 'lively interest and admiration' of the 'young Englishman who found himself temporarily in the Sydney literary world' and as a result, the poet featured in the diary Pennington kept during the years 1926-1930. Drawing on these 'reminiscences', Pennington was to later publish the biographical memoir Christopher Brennan: Some Recollections (1970).
Pennington returned to England in 1930, undertook a Diploma in Librarianship at the University of London, and subsequently spent four years as the Gladstone Librarian at the National Liberal Club (1934-1939). He then came back to Australia in 1939, arriving in Brisbane only five months before the outbreak of World War 2. Assuming the post as the first James Forsyth Librarian at the University of Queensland (1939-1945), Pennington recognised 'the need to build up strong collections of Australian material'. He was noted for having been 'ahead of his time', and the University authorities did not share his vision; and with the added restrictions of a wartime economy, Pennington's 'ambitions for improving the Library' were hindered. Soon after the war ended, a frustrated Pennington tenured his resignation (December 1945). He departed from Australia in January 1946, moving to Canada where he took up the position of University Librarian at McGill University in Montreal. Retiring in 1965, Pennington moved to France where he lived first in Normandy before later settling in Blanzac in 1974.
The author of Peterley Harvest: The Private Diary of David Peterley (1960), Pennington has been credited with producing a literary hoax in the form of this biographical memoir. Posing as editor of the work, he included a 'Foreword' that begins with an expeditionary statement suggesting a clear provinance for the volume's contents i.e. 'the Peterley family papers now in the McGill University'. Based on the 'Journal of David Peterley', the biography is said to cover 'the years of his life in Australia, in England, and in Prague' from 1926 to 1939. Pennington goes on to state that he has editorially 'omitted the whole of the long Australian volume and replaced it' with his 'brief recapitulation' entitled 'Botany Bay'; this section comprises the first seven pages of the book. (Source: Pennington, 'Foreword', 1960)
In his 'Preface' to the 1985 edition, Michael Holroyd demonstrates how this work has been regarded enigmatically since 'shortly before [its] publication, stories began to appear in the press declaring it to be an elaborate hoax'. While it has been generally determined that Peterley Harvest should be treated as a work of fiction, it is also equally suggested that Pennington's creation is semi-autobiographical. In a sense, it appears that the book is neither a 'memoir or fiction' but rather 'an ingenious amalgam of the two'. Adding further to this work's contentious history, copies of the first edition have been considered 'rare' due to the fact that Pennington had the book 'withdrawn and destroyed' shortly after its first publication. Following the suppression of the first edition, Pennington issued a new, 'slightly amended', Canadian edition in 1963. There have been two further publications during the 1980s. (Source: Holroyd, 'Preface', 1985)
In addition to the works listed below, Pennington's major publication was the comprehensive guide, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Works of Wencelaus Hollar, 1607-1677 (1982). After leaving Australia, he also established the Redpath Press (in Canada) and the Presse de l'Abricotier abattu (in France). These two ventures were a response to his interest in hand printing and as a result he self-published a range of booklets and ephemera; only those works relating to Peterley Harvest have been indexed herein.
(Biographical sources: G. A. Wilkes 'Foreword' in Christopher Brennan (1970); John W. East, 'A Brief History of the University of Queensland Library', 27 December 2006)
