Cirrus@Austlit

In Australia Writes : An Anthology (1953), Brian Vrepont's working life is described as '[a] goldminer in Queensland, masseur, busker, employee in a bookstore, and music teacher.' This brief biographical note does not mention his writing and his founding (with Clem Christesen, Paul L. Grano, and James Picot) of Meanjin, one of Australia's most important and long running literary magazines. Vrepont's verse 'The Apple Tree' appears on page 1 and 'The Heron' on page 3 of the first issue, Christmas 1940. He continued to publish in Meanjin until 1954.

Vrepont was educated in Melbourne, Victoria, and is known to have taught violin at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in 1915. He left Melbourne around 1920 and worked his way around Australia and New Zealand arriving in Brisbane, Queensland, in the early 1930s. During this time his verse appeared in the Bulletin under the pseudonym 'Brian Vrepont', which the Australian Dictionary of Biography describes as a 'Frenchified version of Truebridge'. Vrepont wrote poetry and reviews for the Brisbane Telegraph and also published poetry in literary magazines including Comment, Angry Penguins, Southerly, and the Jindyworobak Anthology. He moved to Sydney around 1943 and worked as a salesman for Angus & Robertson. In 1945 he received a Commonwealth Literary Fund grant to write a novel, 'The Time has Come', which was completed but never published. He moved to Perth about 1950 and died there in 1955.

Patrick Buckridge, 'Truebridge, Benjamin Arthur (1882 - 1955)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au (Sighted: 30/05/2007)