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Issue Details: First known date: 1938... 1938 The Passing of the Aborigines : A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Bates devoted more than 35 years of her life to studying Aboriginal life, history, culture, rites, beliefs and customs. Living in a tent in small settlements from Western Australia to the edges of the Nullarbor Plain. She researched and wrote millions of words on the subject.'

'She also worked tirelessly for Aboriginal welfare, setting up camps to feed, clothe and nurse the transient population, drawing on her own income and inheritance to meet the needs of the aged. In spite of her fascination with their way of life, Bates was convinced that the Australian Aborigines were a dying race and that her mission was to record as much as she could about them before they disappeared...' (Source: GoodReads website)

Notes

  • Ghost-written by Ernestine Hill (see Hill's biography, and verified by Bates).
  • Please be aware that this work may contain images, artwork, perspectives and stories from people who are now deceased. It also contains words, terms or descriptions which may be culturally sensitive and are considered inappropriate today, but which reflect the period in which it was written.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      John Murray ,
      1938 .
      image of person or book cover 7480474679315217747.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: xviii, 258p.p.
      Edition info: 2nd ed. (1947)
      Description: illus., ports., and map.
      Reprinted: 1944 , 1947
      Note/s:
      • Includes appendix,
      • Includes index.
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Heinemann , 1966 .
      image of person or book cover 2227055776464761603.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 258p.
      Edition info: 2nd ed.
      Description: illus.
      Note/s:
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Praeger ,
      1967 .
    • Adelaide, South Australia,: eBooks@Adelaide , 2009 .
      image of person or book cover 3746216892086335792.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Link: U9500Full text document This web edition published by eBooks@Adelaide. See copyright information on site for any usage restrictions.
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      John Murray ,
      1944 .
      Extent: 254p.
      Edition info: First Australian Edition, 1944
      Description: illus., ports and map.
      Note/s:
      • Foreword by the Hon. Sir George Murray K.C.M.G.
      • Includes apprendix and index.

Other Formats

Works about this Work

More Than an Amanuensis : Ernestine Hill’s Contribution to The Passing of the Aborigines Eleanor Hogan , Antonia Alexis , Hugh Craig , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 3 no. 18 2018;

'The precise nature of the authorship of Daisy Bates’ controversial bestseller, The Passing of the Aborigines, has been contested since its publication in 1938. Bates was, by then, experiencing health limitations that would have prevented her from producing a coherent, major literary work without significant physical, emotional, financial and editorial support. Ernestine Hill, who provided much of the book’s editorial heavy lifting and writing, later claimed she should have been recognised as co-author, which Bates refuted. The conflicting perceptions and accounts of this authorial collaboration leave some tantalising threads to tease out. To what extent, if any, did Bates contribute to the writing process? Did Hill make as substantial a contribution to the writing and crafting of the book as she claimed?

'To investigate these issues, the authors turned to computational stylistics techniques to develop profiles for the authorial signatures of Daisy Bates and Ernestine Hill, in an attempt to assess their respective contributions in compositing and crafting The Passing of the Aborigines. The study showed that Hill, as Bates’ ghostwriter, created a new hybrid text type that blended her own more formal, professional journalistic style and Bates’ personal, anecdotal one. As far as we know this is the first time a computational stylistics analysis has attempted to assess the extent to which a ghostwriter’s own stylistic habits — reflected in the relative frequency of their usage of preferred sets of function words — are transferred to the text in question.'  (Publication abstract)

The Transnational Fantasy : The Case of James Cowan Peter Matthews , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 26 no. 1 2012; (p. 67-73)
'Recent criticism has seen the rise of an approach to literature that views texts as products of 'transnationalism,' a move that arises from a growing sense that, in a global age, authors should not be bounded by the traditional limits of national culture. In her book Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism Beyond the Nation (2006), for instance, Rebecca Walkowitz looks at how this trend has evolved in world Anglophone literature, extending from canonical writers like Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf to such contemporary authors as Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, and W.G. Sebald. In the field of Australian literature, the question of transnationalism is often linked to issues of postcolonialism, as reflected in recent critical works like Graham Huggan's Australian Literature: Postcolonialism, Racism, Transnationalism (2007) and Nathanael O'Reilly's edited collection Postcolonial Issues in Australian Literature (2010), both of which examine how Australian literature and culture have metamorphosed in the new global context. While there is little doubt that world literature has been affected in important ways by this broadening of literary stage, there seems to be a widespread conflation between two similar but different terms: the transnational and transcultural. For while it is true that the culture of many countries arises from a cosmopolitan and diverse assortment of influences, this loosening of cultural boundaries between nations is far from being simultaneous with the decline of the state.' (Author's introduction)
Singular Influence : Mapping the Ascent of Daisy M. Bates in Popular Understanding and Indigenous Policy Lisa Waller , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Journal of Communication , vol. 37 no. 2 2010; (p. 1-14)
'Daisy M. Bates's influence on Indigenous affairs has often been attributed to her once romantic legend as 'the saviour of the Aborigines', obscuring the impact of the powerful news media position that she commanded for decades. The ideas advanced by the news media through its reports both by and about Bates exerted a strong influence on public understanding and official policies that were devastating for Indigenous Australians and have had lasting impacts. This paper draws on Bourdieu's tradition of field-based research to propose that Bates's 'singular influence' was formed through the accumulation of 'symbolic capital' within and across the fields of journalism, government, Indigenous societies, and anthropology, and that it operated to reinforce and legitimate the media's representations of Indigenous people and issues as well as government policies' (Author's abstract).
Daisy Bates : A Life of Dedication Russell Wenholz , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: Sunday Canberra Times , 18 April 2010; (p. 34)

— Review of The Passing of the Aborigines : A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia Daisy Bates , 1938 single work autobiography
A Woman Time-Traveller : Time in Daisy Bates' The Passing of the Aborigines Arnaud Moussart , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: In-Between Two Worlds : Narratives by Female Explorers and Travellers 1850-1945 2009;
Untitled 1939 single work review
— Appears in: The North Queensland Register , 17 June 1939; (p. 20)

— Review of The Passing of the Aborigines : A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia Daisy Bates , 1938 single work autobiography
Daisy Bates : A Life of Dedication Russell Wenholz , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: Sunday Canberra Times , 18 April 2010; (p. 34)

— Review of The Passing of the Aborigines : A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia Daisy Bates , 1938 single work autobiography
Friend of a Dying Race Arthur Mee , 1938 single work review
— Appears in: Desiderata , November no. 38 1938; (p. 25-28)

— Review of The Passing of the Aborigines : A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia Daisy Bates , 1938 single work autobiography
Untitled J. B. C. , 1939 single work review
— Appears in: Australian National Review , April vol. 5 no. 28 1939; (p. 81-83)

— Review of The Passing of the Aborigines : A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia Daisy Bates , 1938 single work autobiography
Daisy Bates Among the Blacks 1939 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 18 January vol. 60 no. 3075 1939; (p. 2)

— Review of The Passing of the Aborigines : A Lifetime Spent Among the Natives of Australia Daisy Bates , 1938 single work autobiography
'A Glorious Thing is to Live in a Tent in the Infinite' : Daisy Bates Jim Anderson , 2005 single work biography
— Appears in: Uncommon Ground : White Women and Aboriginal History 2005; (p. 217-231)
'Bye and Bye When All the Natives Have Gone' : Daisy Bates and Billingee Cynthia Coyne , 2005 single work biography
— Appears in: Uncommon Ground : White Women and Aboriginal History 2005; (p. 199-216)
Queen of the Never-Never Back in Vogue Joel Gibson , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 2-3 February 2008; (p. 9)
Joel Gibson writes about the work and life of Daisy Bates including the rejection by the academy of her amateur anthropological work and the subsequent revival of status when her writing became useful for Indigenous land claims.
Kabbarli : The Woman Who Gave Her Wealth and Life to the Aborigines Firmin McKinnon , 1939 single work column
— Appears in: The Queenslander , 11 January 1939; (p. 3)
This column tells how Daisy Bates's biography came to be published.
A Woman Time-Traveller : Time in Daisy Bates' The Passing of the Aborigines Arnaud Moussart , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: In-Between Two Worlds : Narratives by Female Explorers and Travellers 1850-1945 2009;
Last amended 16 Jul 2015 13:57:59
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