image of person or book cover 3948666118970135118.jpeg
Dorothy Blewett ca. 1940s. Image provided by Blewett family.
Dorothy Blewett Dorothy Blewett i(A9840 works by) (birth name: Dorothy Emilie Blewett)
Also writes as: Anne Praize
Born: Established: 23 Jul 1898 Northcote, Preston - Northcote area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria, ; Died: Ceased: 17 Sep 1965 Melbourne, Victoria,
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Dorothy Blewett was born in Northcote in 1898 and was educated at the Methodist Ladies College. She was a novelist, playwright, short story writer, and active promoter of Australian literature through her work with International PEN, as a literary agent, and as secretary of the London-based, Society of Australian Writers during the 1950s. She was also secretary of the Melbourne branch of the PEN club

Blewett worked as a teacher as a young woman, then as a secretary and stenographer for a number of large companies in Melbourne, including at the Melbourne Head Office of Thomas Cook Travel where she worked from 1947 to 1951. During this time she wrote articles on Australia for Cook's Staff Magazine.

Leaving Cook's, she moved to London in 1951. She and her sister, Elizabeth Blewett who was also a writer and teachers, lived there for most of the decade before returning to Australia at the end of 1959. She traveled frequently throughout Europe and the UK, representing Australia at International PEN meetings in a number of countries. Blewett became a literary agent upon her return to Australia, representing an unknown number of Australian writers including Hesba Brinsmead, author of the enormously successful Pastures of the Blue Crane.

Blewett's published two novels: Vision (1931) under the pseudonym Anne Praize, and Pattern for a Scandal (1948), published under her own name. She also wrote at least 12 plays for stage and radio. Her play, Quiet Night was produced widely in Australia and in the United Kingdom. The First Joanna : A Play in Three Acts won the Playwrights Advisory Board award for best play in 1947 and received numerous productions in 1948, including as a radio play. J. C. Williamson were interested in producing the play and a contract was entered into in the late 1940s. Maxwell Wray also optioned the play for a London season, but it was not produced. It was adapted to television in 1961 and produced on the ABC.

Two of Dorothy Blewett's sisters, Esme Rice and Elizabeth Blewett were writers, and another sister, Rowena Blewett, ran a correspondence school called 'Merry Days' that served families living in rural and remote regions of Australia and expatriate families.

In 2016, Dorothy Blewett's The First Joanna was published by AustLit in five different versions. It was produced by drama students at The University of Queensland under the directorship of Sue Rider. It was the play's first performance in 54 years. 

Blewett wrote other novels, plays, short stories, and articles: some of which remain unpublished. She also adapted others writers work for radio; her full publication record is gradually becoming clear as research continues. (2018) 

Exhibitions

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Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Con Sordino 1945 10982904 1945 single work drama
1945 commended Wagga Play Competition
y separately published work icon The First Joanna : A Play in Three Acts Melbourne : 1943 (Manuscript version)10930522 10930514 1943 single work drama (taught in 1 units)

In The First Joanna Dorothy Blewett explores Australia's acceptance of its convict heritage, tracing the fictional history of the Deverons, owners of a leading South Australian vineyard. The property, situated near the Onkaparinga River, was established in the early years of the colony by settler Stephen Deveron. The central characters of the play are the Joanna Millay, a young convict woman who becomes the matriarch of the Deverons, and Joanna Deveron, the wife of the second Stephen Deveron - the grandson of the first Joanna and the first Stephen Deveron.

The narrative begins on Joanna's birthday in 1945 and introduces the Deveron family. Joanna has only recently arrived at the vineyard and is still suffering from the effects of several years spent as a prisoner of war in Poland. Joanna and Stephen had married in England shortly before the outbreak of war but were forced apart after she became trapped behind enemy lines. Having led a peripatetic upbringing in Europe Joanna finds the dull monotony of life on the vineyard unbearable and is thinking of returning to Europe. Her love of Stephen is making the decision all the more painful.

When Stephen's maiden aunts give her a chair belonging to their mother, Joanna is at first horrifed by the thought of its staid existence. She at first can't bear think about it, but after discovering within the chair a set of diaries written by the first Joanna she becomes fascinated. The diaries reveal a life of trauma, loss, murder, illegitimacy, and eventually, triumph through love. Through her reading of the diaries the play's dramatic action segues into "interpolated scenes" depicting key moments in the lives of Stephen's forebears during the nineteenth century - 1837, 1849, 1862, 1871, and 1885. The diaries ultimately allow the contemporary Joanna the capacity to imagine a future at the vineyard with the man she truly loves.


In an interview with Coralie Clarke Rees on Sydney ABC radio on 8 March, 1948, Blewett described the play as:

"It's the story of a modern English girl called Joanna who marries an Australian wine-grower and comes to live in his family home in South Australia. There she finds the narrow insistence on family respectability stifling, and she is about to leave to place when she discovers the diary of the first Joanna who built the home and pioneered the vineyard. In it she reads that the woman who established this respectable successful family had been a convict girl from Tasmania. The first Joanna was a vivid courageous person who had lived dangerously. She appeals tat once to the imagination and the loyalty of the second Joanna who had been repelled by the smug legends about the old pioneer: and the young Joanna Becomes proud to belong to a family with such an honourably shady past." 

Characters

1945

STEPHEN DEVERON

MRS COLLINS who “obliges” at Chateau Deveron

JOANNA DEVERON

JOCELYN CUMING Stephen’s second cousin

HALLEY VAN DRUYTEN Captain in the United States Army

EDITHA AND VIOLA DEVERON Stephen’s twin great-aunts, aged 92

JACKSON the chauffeur

1837

SIR BERTRAM TAVENER Governor of a women's jail in Tasmania

LADY CAROLINE TAVENOR his wife

MISS BEATRICE TAVENOR his sister

CAPTAIN JULES SMITH of the British Army, aged 29

STEPHEN DEVERON 1st, aged 22

JOANNA MILLAY the first Joanna, aged 17

1849

STEPHEN aged 34

JOANNA 29

1862

MAJOR JULES SMITH 54

JOANNA 42

STEPHEN 47

Joanna and Stephen's children:

AUGUSTA 20

PHILLIP 14

EDITHA AND VIOLA 10

1871

VIOLA AND EDITH 18

JOANNA 51

1885

JOANNA 64

STEPHEN 69

1947 winner Playwrights' Advisory Board Competition
y separately published work icon Quiet Night 1941 Sydney : RAAF Educational Services , 1943 Z561856 1941 single work drama

'Setting her action in a large hospital, Miss Blewett has undertaken no simple task in dealing with nursing from both its practical and psychological aspects, complicated in two cases by individual emotional strains. The play covers the hours of one hectic night in the hospital, in which the emotional preoccupations of several of the staff intrude on their professional duties' ('Australian Play' Argus 10 March 1941, 6).


Characters

SISTER MURPHY of the day staff at St. Agnes’

PROBATIONER

SISTER RANKIN (FRANCES)

NURSE RUTH SINCLAIR 3rd Year

NURSE JEAN SPARROW 1st Year

NURSE WILLIAMS 1st Year

NURSE PATSY CURTIN Junior

NURSE SMITH

NURSE ROBERTS

RUSSEL KEANE A Patient

DR. ANGUS MACREADY Resident Doctor at the Hospital

MRS. LEILA CLAYTON A patient

THE MATRON

DR. RICHARD CLAYTON

1941 winner Westralian Drama Festival Award
Last amended 30 Oct 2018 12:44:03
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