person or book cover
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Elizabeth Webby Elizabeth Webby i(A6186 works by) (birth name: Elizabeth Loder) (a.k.a. Elizabeth Anne Webby)
Also writes as: Elizabeth Loder
Born: Established: 9 Feb 1942 ; Died: Ceased: 6 Aug 2023
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Professor Elizabeth Webby was a respected scholar, holding the Chair of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney until 2007. She was an expert in nineteenth-century Australian literature and was also interested in theatre, popular culture, short fiction, and the work of Patrick White, Henry Handel Richardson, and Katherine Mansfield.

Webby was an active member of the academic community and wrote and edited numerous books, including The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature (2000), collections of essays, works about nineteenth-century Australia and feminism. Webby edited Southerly for twelve years, and contributed to The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, writing literary profiles on such authors as Miles Franklin, Marjorie Barnard, Flora Eldershaw, Gillian Mears and Jean Bedford.

Webby was a member of the editorial board of AustLit, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She retired in 2007.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2004 Order of Australia Member of the Order of Australia (AM) For service to the study, teaching and promotion of Australian literature, for support to Australian authors, and for fostering links between the academic and general reading communities.
2003 ASAL Awards A.A. Phillips Award For services to the teaching and reseach of Australian Literature.
2001 recipient Centenary Medal For service to Australian society and the humanities in the study of literature.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009 Z1590615 2009 anthology correspondence diary drama essay extract poetry prose short story (taught in 23 units)

'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.

2010 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian General Non-Fiction Book of the Year
2010 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Special Award
y separately published work icon Southerly 1939 Sydney : English Association (Sydney Branch) , 1939- Z954791 1939 periodical (291 issues)

Founded in 1923 as a branch of the London-based English Association, the Sydney branch of the English Association (known until 1944 as the Australian English Association) pursued the primary objective of preserving the purity of English in both written and spoken forms. In 1936, a four-page 'Bulletin' was produced to promote these objectives. This format was expanded three years later to include articles, reviews, and news about the association in a 40-page journal called Southerly. The title was designed to suggest the relation that the journal had with English literary traditions. It also evoked the refreshing winds of Sydney's 'southerly buster' that sometimes develop into a destructive natural force. The significance of the title was augmented when the now familiar Hugh McCrae (q.v.) sketch of Auster, spirit of the South Wind, was first displayed as a motif in 1946.

R. G. Howarth (q.v.), a lecturer in English at the University of Sydney and one of the leading proponents of the journal, was appointed founding editor, a position he held until 1955. The first volumes of Southerly were completely funded by the Australian English Association. The editors and contributors worked in an honorary capacity, but the costs of production remained a financial burden. This burden was relieved in 1944 when the publishing company Angus & Robertson agreed to take responsibility for the cost and management of publication and distribution. Two years later they also took responsibility for printing Southerly at their Halstead Press, an arrangement that continued until the early 1960s. The English Association received further financial relief in 1952 when it was awarded the first of its ongoing literary grants from the Australian government.

Howarth's editorial policy delivered articles and reviews on both Australian and overseas literature, but this policy drew criticism from members of the Jindyworobak movement for its lack of focus on the local product. Howarth defended his editorial policy in the November issue of 1941, stating that he wished the journal to avoid regionalism or parochialism, thus 'maintaining the cultural good relations that have hitherto subsisted between the mother and the daughter countries.' In time, this policy became less stringent as Australian literature became more widely accepted as a serious field of study.

The physical size of Southerly changed several times during its lifetime, and the number of pages devoted to Australian literature steadily increased from the 40-page issues of the 1940s to regular issues of more than 200 pages in the 1990s. The influence of Howarth's early editorial policies lingered into the 1970s. During the 1940s it was not unusual to see articles on Australian literature beside articles on European poetry and fiction. In 1950, one issue printed the poems of a number of contemporary English poets, but during the 1950s the number of articles on non-Australian subjects gradually decreased. By 1963 readers could expect a strong concentration on Australian writing in major articles by academic writers. But the 'Books Received' column continued to announce the arrival of British and European books, and reviews of such books were common until 1973.

When Howarth left Australia in 1956 for an academic position in South Africa, Southerly was set to change its focus and format. Kenneth Slessor (q.v.) was appointed the second editor of Southerly and responded immediately to its flagging reputation. The critic and literary historian H. M. Green (q.v.) had recently described the journal as 'dull' and 'unadventurous'. To address this, Slessor implemented a number of changes to the format and content, bringing a less academic tone to the journal by inviting contributions from his journalist colleagues and high-profile figures such as the Prime Minister Robert Menzies (q.v.). Most significantly, he added the sub-title 'A Review of Australian Literature', signalling an intention to break from Howarth's early editorial policy.

The support from Angus & Robertson ceased during Slessor's term as editor because of the publisher's reluctance to continue providing labour and equipment at the Halstead Press for no charge. Slessor resigned in frustration after consistent delays and the subsequent absence of issues for 1960. Walter Stone (q.v.) acted as editor following Slessor's departure, printing Southerly at his Wentworth Press, and later taking responsibility for subscriptions and distribution. During the 1970s, the English Association accepted more control of the publishing activities of Southerly, assuming full managerial responsibility after 1985. As in its foundation years, the journal survived the financial difficulties of these transitions with much unpaid labour by members of the English Association.

In 1963, G. A. Wilkes (q.v.) began his long term as editor of Southerly, presiding over a period that saw continued change in the study of Australian literature. The foundation professor of Australian literature at Sydney University, Wilkes broadened the scope of the journal by seeking contributors outside of the Sydney circle of writers employed by Howarth and Slessor. Assisted by the growing university system, this new editorial approach stimulated academic criticism of Australian literature and enabled junior academics to achieve wider exposure. In addition to the development of criticism, Southerly continued to attract contributions of fiction and poetry from some of Australia's best writers. After G. A. Wilkes' retirement in 1987, Elizabeth Webby (q.v.), Professor of Australian literature at Sydney University, edited Southerly until 1999.

In 2000, Southerly renewed its association with the Halstead Press which once again accepted responsibility for subscriptions, publication and distribution. This arrangement allowed the new editors, Noel Rowe (q.v.) and David Brooks (q.v.), to concentrate on the planning and contents of each issue, beginning a new phase in the journal's ongoing contribution to the study of Australian literature.

2020 recipient The Copyright Agency Cultural Fund Cultural Fund Grants for Organisations Writing Through Fences – contributors’ fees for new writing by refugee writers
Last amended 8 Aug 2023 11:37:22
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