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Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Memoirs of a Slow Learner single work   autobiography  
Issue Details: First known date: 1994... 1994 Memoirs of a Slow Learner
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Part autobiography, part cultural history, some will read Memoirs of a Slow Learner as a comic anatomy of the corpse of Australian small-l liberalism. Others will see in it a journalistic record of the times. Yet others a moving personal statement. It is a unique departure in Australian autobiography. Commenting on this new edition, Coleman writes: ‘Looking back across twenty years I see more clearly than I did at the time that the real origin of Memoirs of a Slow Learner was my immersion in the poetry of James McAuley (my co-editor at Quadrant.) I had already written one response to his work and genius, The Heart of James McAuley (Connor Court). His autobiographical poems moved me deeply, especially his 'Letter to John Dryden'. It distantly echoed a similar family background to mine (freethinking father, Protestant mother), a similar education in a secular state grammar school and Sydney University, infatuation with Marxism, mysticism and Christianity. But whereas McAuley found a resolution of his quest in the Catholic Church, I persevered with secular liberalism, in the belief that imagination and feeling could still moisten its parched landscape. Several writers published rejoinders to McAuley’s poem – Jack Lindsay, Amy Witting, A.D.Hope. Memoirs of a Slow Learner was mine. It could be called 'A Letter to James McAuley'. In the years since I have come to accept many of McAuley’s criticisms of my liberal secularism – many but not all. I am now more sceptical of the freethinkers who influenced me in my youth such as the philosopher John Anderson and far less sceptical of church leaders who deplored their influence. The conversation continues.’' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Available as a sound recording.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Notes:
Includes portraits of: Peter Coleman, Donald Horne, James McAuley, Patricia Rolfe and Desmond O'Grady.
    • Pymble, Turramurra - Pymble - St Ives area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Angus and Robertson , 1994 .
      Extent: ix, 166p.p.
      Description: illus.; ports.
      ISBN: 0207182485
    • Ballarat, Ballarat area, Ballarat - Bendigo area, Victoria,: Connor Court Publishing , 2014 .
      image of person or book cover 1620982807962560645.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 190p.
      Edition info: New edition
      Note/s:
      • Published October 2014
      ISBN: 9781925138269

Works about this Work

Peter Coleman's Journey Peter Costello , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , March vol. 59 no. 3 2015; (p. 106-107)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Things Change in Australia Margaret Boe Birns , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 9 no. 1 1995; (p. 68-69)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Memoirs of a Slow Learner: An Intimate Personal and Cultural Memoir Doug Buckley , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Zadok Perspectives: Quarterly Journal of the Zadok Institute for Christianity and Society , July no. 49 1995; (p. 19-20)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Cold War Convictions Nicholas Brown , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Editions , March no. 22 1995; (p. 23-24)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
A Sydney Observer Dick Hughes , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , March vol. 39 no. 3 1995; (p. 85-86)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
An Understated Delight Edmund Campion , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 13 September vol. 116 no. 5937 1994; (p. 97)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Challenges of Secular Liberalism John McLaren , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 24 September 1994; (p. 9)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Conservative Mirrors on the Australian Cold War Experience J. D. Pringle , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 24 September 1994; (p. 11A)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Editor's Choice John Schauble , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 20 November 1994; (p. 10)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Memories from the Right Max Teichmann , 1994 single work review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , November vol. 4 no. 9 1994; (p. 61)

— Review of Memoirs of a Slow Learner Peter Coleman , 1994 single work autobiography
Last amended 31 Oct 2014 12:55:58
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