Dear Kathleen, dear Manning : the correspondence of Manning Clark and Kathleen Fitzpatrick 1949-1990 / edited by Susan Davies

Manning Clark and Kathleen Fitzpatrick were influential Australian historians; they were both also gifted writers. Their personal letters, published for the first time in Dear Kathleen, Dear Manning, form a revealing and moving collection. They trace the gradual development over forty years of an unlikely, but deep and sympathetic friendship - one which became more and more important to the writers as they moved into old age. Clark's left-wing politics contrasted with Fitzpatrick's staunch liberalism; her privileged background was very different from his more austere upbringing: her stately demeanour was at odds with his studied larrikinism. Manning Clark took to the public stage, while Kathleen Fitzpatrick remained resolutely private.

Yet they struck a chord in each other, seeing themselves in some way as 'outsiders'. They were both extraordinarily sensitive and reserved people; notice the delicacy and obliqueness with which they refer to personal problems, and the sympathy they quickly extend for each other's troubles and nervous ills.