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Papers of Frank Dalby Davison, 1859-1970 [manuscript]
Bib ID 2571291
Format ManuscriptManuscript
Author
Davison, Frank Dalby, 1893-1970
 
Related Online
Resources
Access Conditions Available for research. Not for loan. 
Description [1859-1970] 
2 m. (13 boxes)+ 1 folio item. 
Summary

Contains correspondence with his mother and family, and letters from literary figures including Nettie and Vance Palmer, Kylie Tennant, Henry Handel Richardson, Walter Murdoch, Patrick White, Marjorie Barnard, R. D. Fitzgerald, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Xavier Herbert, and others. Includes typescript drafts of some of his novels and some published novels inscribed to Davison from the authors. There is an ABC television interview transcript with Davison conducted by Owen Webster and the unedited working script of an interview with Davison recorded March 18-19, 1969. Included in the collection is the text of a talk on Christopher Brennan by Hilary Lofting, war service documents, and Davison family photographs.

Biography/History

Writer and novelist, Frank Dalby Davison won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for his novel Man Shy (1931). His interest in soil erosion and deforestation led to his stories Blue Coast Caravan (1935), The Wasteland (1935), and Children of the Dark People (1936). Davison was awarded a Commonwealth Literary Fund Fellowship in 1939-1940. He made political commentary through his literature "to reveal the Australian situation and to promote liberal democratic values." He saw literature as a means by which people might be helped to know themselves and their society as a necessary prelude to reform.

Notes

Manuscript reference no.: NLA MS 1945.

Associated materials: Owen Webster papers located at National Library of Australia Manuscript Section at MS 4805; Pixie O'Harris letters at MS 4800; Kay Davison papers at MS 5183

Index/Finding Aid Note Finding aid available online. 
Subjects Davison, Frank Dalby, 1893-1970 -- Correspondence.  |  Davison, Frank Dalby, 1893-1970 -- Archives.  |  Conservation of natural resources in literature.  |  Authors, Australian -- Biography.
Time Coverage 1859-1970 
Occupation Authors.

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