Michael Wilding Michael Wilding i(A16165 works by) (a.k.a. R. M. Wilding)
Born: Established: 1942 Worcester, Worcestershire,
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England,
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United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1963
Heritage: English
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BiographyHistory

Michael Wilding was born at Worcester, England, and attended the Royal Grammar School, Worcester. He graduated from Oxford University in 1962, attaining a B.A. with first class honours. In 1963 he took up a three year appointment as assistant lecturer at the University of Sydney. In 1967, he returned to England to complete his M.A. at Oxford, and to teach at the University of Birmingham. He then returned to the University of Sydney in 1969, where he held positions as Senior Lecturer (1969-1972), Reader in English (1973-1992), and then Professor of English and Australian Literature (1993-2000). On his retirement he was made professor emeritus.

Within academia, Wilding has had a distinguished career as a literary scholar, critic, and editor. He has written extensively on seventeenth and early eighteenth century English literature (particularly Milton), and since the early 1970s he has built a reputation as an important critic and scholar of Australian literature, with his studies of Marcus Clarke, William Lane and Christina Stead, amongst others. Wilding came to prominence as creative writer in the late 1960s, when he was at the forefront of the 'new writing' movement which emerged in Australia in at that time - and he was one of a group of writers, editors and publishers who were influential in promoting new and experimental writing, and in facilitating the revitalised Australian literary landscape of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Now regarded as one of Australia's leading contemporary authors, he has published over twenty novels and short story collections. His short stories have also been published widely in anthologies of modern Australian writing, and many have appeared in translation. In addition, Wilding has continued his interest in promoting writers and writing. He has edited a number of short story anthologies, in the 1990s he served for a number of years as a Sydney Festival Writers' Week committee member, and he has also been a Chair of the N.S.W. Writers' Centre. He is currently Emeritus Professor in English and Australian Literature at the University of Sydney. 

Exhibitions

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • Wilding has also written a number of essays, literary articles, and book chapters which are outside the scope of AustLit, and are not listed below. Many of these are noted in the select bibliography which appears in Running Wild (2004).

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Wild Bleak Bohemia : Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall - A Documentary North Melbourne : Australian Scholarly Publishing , 2014 8265498 2014 single work biography

'Meticulously using contemporary newspaper reports, court records, published memoirs, private letters and diaries, Michael Wilding tells the story of three troubled geniuses of Australian writing and their world of poetry and poverty, alcohol and opiates, horse-racing and theatre, journalism and publishing. Gordon shot himself, unable to pay the printer of his poems; Kendall ended up in a mental hospital after forging a cheque, and Clarke died bankrupt for a second time.' (Publication summary)

2015 joint winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards Non-Fiction
2015 winner Colin Roderick Award
The Black Rocks 1997 single work short story
— Appears in: Westerly , Autumn vol. 42 no. 1 1997; (p. 13-16) Wild Amazement 2006; (p. 162-165)

'In the middle of the night I announced that this was the last holiday I would ever go on. It was unbearable, I said, intolerable.' (Introduction)   

1997 joint winner Patricia Hackett Prize
Nephew's Story 1997 single work short story autobiography
— Appears in: Westerly , Summer vol. 42 no. 4 1997; (p. 34-38) Wild Amazement 2006; (p. 128-132) The Midlands, and Leaving Them 2021; (p. 66-71)
'The bed sitting room, the afternoon light streaming through the window, the high-backed easy chair, the dark furniture around the walls, the mementoes, photographs, pot plants, dried flowers, little objects. The little objects I cannot immediately recall. They meant a lot to my aunt, they were the memory theatre of her life, all with their associations. They took her out of the room through space and time. To me they represented the fetishism of objects, they were just clutter. I could afford to reject all that, or thought I could. At the time I felt I had no choice but to reject it, the oppressive weight of the old world, old values, which I had travelled so far to escape. But every time I revisited the objects would all be in place, in still, silent repose.'  (Introduction)   
1997 joint winner Patricia Hackett Prize

Known archival holdings

Albinski 236-237
Last amended 27 Nov 2019 10:47:01
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