The Aroma of the Past : In Antipodean London single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 The Aroma of the Past : In Antipodean London
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Representations of London in Australia have been mediated for so long by books, newspapers, magazines and, eventually, by film and television, that new arrivals tended to read it as a dictionary of quotations. It has been well said that, above all cities, London is not just 'a place'; it also 'takes place' as it is defined and redefined in the countless versions of it over 800 years or more. And the bounds between the physical city and its imaginative reworkings between presence and association, are indefinite and permeable. Nowhere was this more true than in the Australia of this era... ' (From author's introduction 58)

Notes

  • Epigraph:
    I don't know how or why it should be so, but indeed, with only rare exceptions, the great public of our land up north insists on the presence amongst them, at the beginning, of those to whom its favour is to be extended...Yes, Mr Kestrel, London is the place for you; great, lonely, unique London, splendid and infamous, the beloved granary of all the world, that is the place where you shall win recognition for your children, born and unborn. - Alec Dawson (1900)

    Arabs, when they make coffee, leave the old grounds in the pot, so that the aroma of past brews enriches the new one. I think it is this aroma of the past which catches Australians who come to Europe. - Martin Boyd (1961)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Lusting for London : Australian Expatriate Writers at the Hub of Empire, 1870-1950 Peter Morton , New York (City) : Palgrave Macmillan , 2011 Z1826218 2011 single work criticism

    'Long before the post-WWII migration, over one hundred Australian writers left their homeland to seek fame and fortune in London. Some made little mark despite their arduous efforts; some made a tolerable living; a few, like Martin Boyd, H.H. Richardson and Christina Stead, actually achieved permanent fame. Lusting for London analyses how these writers reacted to their new surroundings—in both their autobiographical writings and their creative work. With wit and rigor, Peter Morton studies the expatriate experience and reveals the ways in which the loss of these expatriates affected the evolving literary culture of Australia' (Publisher blurb).

    Contents: Issues of Definition and Evidence; Sailing for El Dorado: Going Home in the Literary Imagination; A Gout of Bile: Metic and Immigrant Expatriates; The Aroma of the Past: in Antipodean London; Drawing off the Rich Cream: The Struggle in London; Who Are You? No One: The Hacking Journalist in London; The Dear Old Mother Country: Richardson's The Way Home and Stead's For Love Alone; Always the Feeling of Australia in the Air: Martin Boyd's Lucinda Brayford; A Leaven of Venturesome Minds: Literary Expatriates and Australian Culture; No More Pap from the Teats of London: From Expatriation toTtransnationalism; Conclusion: A Padded Cell in Wagga Wagga.

         New York (City) : Palgrave Macmillan , 2011     pg. 57-89
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Last amended 28 Aug 2012 12:18:30
57-89 The Aroma of the Past : In Antipodean Londonsmall AustLit logo
Subjects:
  • London,
    c
    England,
    c
    c
    United Kingdom (UK),
    c
    Western Europe, Europe,
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