Abstract
It is perhaps ironic that the first Australian Literary Award would be initiated and funded by an Australian woman writer of remarkable élan, and the first recipient of the award would be the dominant and redoubtable Australian male author Patrick White. Miles Franklin (1879–1954) maybe regarded as Australia’s first feminist woman writer, a pioneering figure, who not only broke the silence but also pushed against the boundaries and borders not without controversy in many cases. Spanning more than a century of activist writing Miles Franklin, Katherine Susannah Pritchard, Jean Devanny, Eleanor Dark and Germaine Greer can be assessed as intrepid voices of Australian women’s writing. Remarkable too is their commitment to and disenchantment with Marxist ideology as supporters and members of the Australian Communist Party.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (London: Macgibbon and Kee Ltd, 1970), 1.
- 2.
Odette Kelada, “Skating on Thin Paper a Journey in the Guise of a Twentieth Century Australian Woman Writer” in Journal of the Department of English. Jharna Sanyal and Sanjukta Dasgupta (ed), (Special Issue: New Literatures in English Vol xxx II Nos 1&2 2005–2006), 12.
- 3.
Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career (London: Angus & Robertson, 1986), V.
- 4.
Miles Franklin, ibid, v.
- 5.
Miles Franklin, ibid, v.
- 6.
Bertha Lawson, My Henry Lawson, (Sydney: F. Johnson, 1943),19.
- 7.
Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career, ix.
- 8.
Miles Franklin, ibid, 27.
- 9.
Miles Franklin, ibid, 21.
- 10.
Miles Franklin, ibid, 17.
- 11.
Miles Franklin, ibid, 144.
- 12.
Mathew Ray Miles Franklin: Australian Writers and Their Work (Melbourne: Landsdowne Press, 1963), 12.
- 13.
Drusilla Modjeska, Exiles at Home Women Writers 1925–1945 (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1981, this edition 2001), 156.
- 14.
Marjorie Barnard Miles Franklin (New York: Twayne Publishers Inc, 1967), 178.
- 15.
Why I am a Communist, (Sydney: Current Book Distributors, 1956), 1–16.
- 16.
- 17.
Katharine Susannah Prichard, Coonardoo (Sydney: Angus & Robertson Classics, 2002), V.
- 18.
Prichard, ibid, (xxi).
- 19.
H. Drake-Brockman, Katharine Susannah Prichard Australian Writers and Their Work (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1967), 25.
- 20.
Jean Devanny, Romantic Revolutionary (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999), 23.
- 21.
Jean Devanny, ibid, 37.
- 22.
Jean Devanny, Sugar Heaven (Victoria: Vulgar Press, 2002), 10.
- 23.
Carson, Susan. “Surveillance and Slander: Eleanor Dark in the 1940s and 1950s” in Hecate vol 27, no 1, 32–43. (Brisbane: University of Queensland Publication, 2001), 3.
- 24.
Barbara Brooks, and Judith Clark, Eleanor Dark: A Writer’s Life (Sydney: Macmillan, 1998), 76.
- 25.
Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career, 87.
- 26.
Interview by David Leser October 2008.
http://davidleser.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Germaine-Greer.pdf
- 27.
David Leser, ibid., 1.
- 28.
Germaine Greer, White Fella Jump Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood (London: Profile Books, 2004).
- 29.
- 30.
Ann Hale and Mary Hawkins, Eggs Not Sex: The Functionalism of Germaine Greer Anthropology Today, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1985), 21–23. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain.
- 31.
Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman. (New York: Anchor Books, 2000), 5.
- 32.
Greer, The Female Eunuch, 93.
- 33.
Bibliography
Barnard, Marjorie. Miles Franklin. New York: Twayne Publishers Inc, 1967.
Brooks, Barbara and Clark Judith. Eleanor Dark: A Writer’s Life. Sydney: Macmillan, 1998.
Carson, Susan. “Surveillance and Slander: Eleanor Dark in the 1940s and 1950s.” In Hecate 32–43. Edited by Carole Ferrier, 27, no 1. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Publication, 2001.
Devanny, Jean. Sugar Heaven. Melbourne: Vulgar Press, 2002.
Drake-Brockman, H. Katharine Susannah Prichard Australian Writers and Their Work. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Franklin, Miles. My Brilliant Career. London: Angus & Robertson, 1986.
Greer, Germaine The Female Eunuch London: Macgibbon and Kee Ltd, 1970.
Greer, Germaine. The Whole Woman. New York: Anchor Books, 2000 (First published 1999).
Greer, Germaine. White Fella Jumping Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood. London: Profile Books, 2004.
Hale Ann and Hawkins Mary, Eggs not Sex: The Functionalism of Germaine Greer Anthropology Today, 1, no. 2, 21–23. Edited by Mark Aldenderfer. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, April 1985.
Jean Devanny. Romantic Revolutionary. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999.
Lawson, Bertha. My Henry Lawson. Sydney: F. Johnson, 1943.
Mathew, Ray “Miles Franklin.” In Australian Writers and Their Work. Melbourne: Landsdowne Press, 1963.
Modjeska, Drusilla. Exiles at Home Women writers 1925–1945 Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 2001.
Prichard, Katharine Susannah. Coonardoo Sydney: Angus& Robertson Classics 2002.
Prichard, Katharine Susannah. Why I am a Communist Sydney: Current Book Distributors, 1956, 1–16 https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/australia/1956/prichard-why.htm
Prichard, Katharine Susannah. Working Bullocks. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1966.
Wallace, Christine. Germain Greer Untamed Shrew. London: Richard Cohen Books, 1999 (first published by Pan Macmillan Australia 1997)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dasgupta, S. (2017). From Miles Franklin to Germaine Greer: Writing as Activism. In: Das, D., Dasgupta, S. (eds) Claiming Space for Australian Women’s Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50400-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50400-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50399-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50400-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)