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Issue Details: First known date: 1987... 1987 Louisa
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

University of Queensland Press refers to their republished version of Louisa as a 'groundbreaking, award-winning biography of Louisa Lawson, mother of Henry Lawson, major reformer, innovator and journalist, and founding editor of The Dawn. It includes an informative, personal foreword by Louisa' s first publisher, Hilary McPhee. Louisa won a number of prizes in the first year of its publication: The Victorian Premier's Award for Non-Fiction (The Nettie Palmer Prize), The NSW State Award for Literature, The Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society and The John Hetherington Bicentennial Biography Prize (shared). It was also shortlisted for four other awards and was chosen as the best Commonwealth non fiction book for 1988 in The Year's Work in English, 1989.'

[source: University of Queensland Press website]

Exhibitions

Notes

  • Includes reference to the influence of Louisa Lawson on Henry Lawson.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Untitled Ken A. Stewart , single work review
— Review of Louisa Brian Matthews , 1987 single work biography
Will the Real Subject Please Stand Up? Autobiographical Voices in Biography Karen Lamb , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 18 no. 1 2021; (p. 25-30) Essays in Life Writing 2021; (p. 24-29)

'Biographers exist in a tight partnership with their chosen subject and there is often during the research and writing an equivalent reflective personal journey for the biographer. This is generally obscured, buried among an overwhelming magnitude of sources while the biographer is simultaneously developing the all-important ‘relationship’ required to sustain the narrative journey ahead. Questions and selections beset the biographer, usually about access to, or veracity of, sources but perhaps there are more personal questions that could be put to the biographer. The many works on the craft of biography or collections about the life-writing journey tell only some of this tale. It is not often enough, however, that we acknowledge how biography can be unusually ‘double-voiced’ in communicating a strong sense of the teller in the tale: the biographer’s own life experience usually does lead them to the biography, but also influences the shaping of the work. These are still ‘tales of craft’ in one sense, but autobiographical reflections in another. Perhaps this very personal insight can only be attempted in the ‘afterlife’ of biography; the quiet moments and years that follow such consuming works. In this article, I reflect on this unusually emotional form of life writing.' (Publication abstract)

Discarding the Disclaimer? Reappraising Fiction as a Mode of Biography James Vicars , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 20 no. 1 2016;
'While the biographical novel has created an openness to representing lives in fiction it is usually expected to provide a disclaimer certifying the work’s unreliability despite its potential for truth-telling and rich tools for writers wishing to tell the stories of real people. Even so, more serious attention to the historical novel since Lukács, the impact of the postmodern novel, plus the variety of published works that have adopted fictional strategies to tell lives over the last half century suggest this perspective is shifting. Using Ina Schabert’s seminal work on fictional biography as a scholarly reference point, this paper explores fiction’s biographical capacity, turning to published works and personal writing practice to try to reappraise the potential of fiction as a mode of biography.' (Publication abstract)
From Biography to Autobiography Gillian Whitlock , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature 2000; (p. 232-257)
Contains the following sections: Grand Portraits; Caution: Biographer at Work; Equatorial Zones: Where Louisa Meets Poppy and Rita; The Flawed Glass; Self-Portraits: "Opening My Heart".
Of Fissiparous Psyches and Polymorphous Beasts Axel Clark , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 200 1998; (p. 25-26)

— Review of Louisa Brian Matthews , 1987 single work biography
Untitled Carolyn Polizzotto , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , March vol. 3 no. 3 1988; (p. 14-15)

— Review of Louisa Brian Matthews , 1987 single work biography
Larger than Life Sue Hosking , 1987 single work review
— Appears in: The CRNLE Reviews Journal , no. 2 1987-1988; (p. 86-88)

— Review of Louisa Brian Matthews , 1987 single work biography
Paperbacks Suzy Baldwin , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 21 November 1998; (p. 12)

— Review of A Dagg at My Table : Selected Writings John Clarke , 1998 selected work poetry column extract ; Louisa Brian Matthews , 1987 single work biography
Bananas, Battlers, Biographers and Bouquets Reba Gostand , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , September vol. 7 no. 3 1988; (p. 76-77)

— Review of The Faber Book of Contemporary Australian Short Stories 1988 anthology short story ; Louisa Brian Matthews , 1987 single work biography ; The Estuary Georgia Savage , 1987 single work novel
A Hero's Mother Has Her Say John Colmer , 1987 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 5-6 December 1987; (p. 12)

— Review of Louisa Brian Matthews , 1987 single work biography
An Unnatural Act Julie Lewis , 1988 single work column
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Review , September vol. 3 no. 9 1988; (p. 8-9)
How Have Biographies Been Written and How Can They Be? Hazel Rowley , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , Summer no. 16 1992; (p. 139-143)
The Advancing Wave : Australian Literary Biography Since 1980 Brian Kiernan , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reconnoitres : Essays in Australian Literature in Honour of G. A. Wilkes 1992; (p. 191-203) Studies in Australian Literary History 1997; (p. 215-229)
An Academic Ocker Helen Covernton , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 15 December 1990; (p. 14)
Louisa Lawson : Tentative Notes Towards Work Possibly in Progress . . . Brian Matthews , 1987 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 46 no. 1 1987; (p. 94-102)
Last amended 10 Aug 2018 09:24:49
Subjects:
  • Sydney, New South Wales,
  • Gulgong, Gulgong area, Gulgong - Mudgee - Rylstone area, Central West NSW, New South Wales,
  • Bush,
  • 1860s
  • 1870s
  • 1880s
  • 1890s
  • 1900s
  • 1910s
  • 1920s
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