Roslyn Russell

When the English zoologist John Gould died in London in February 1881, he was renowned for his scientific and descriptive studies, principally of birds – those found in his native Britain, the Himalayas, Europe, Australia, North America, and New Guinea – but also of Australian mammals. In the course of his self-made career, Gould produced forty-one large volumes, handsomely illustrated with 3000 plates. These were the work of several artistic collaborators, including, importantly, his wife, Elizabeth, and – early and briefly – Edward Lear, famous later in his own right for his limericks and as a masterly writer of nonsense verse and prose. In addition to his great published works of natural history, Gould was the author of many learned papers and the recipient of high honours from scientific societies. As a leader in his field, he interacted as an equal with aristocratic men of science and affairs; the members of the governing class of his day.

In death, as in life, Manning Clark casts a long shadow. The author of A History of Australia (1962–87) remains a figure of considerable interest and contention in intellectual and cultural debate. Clark’s imposing oeuvre has its detractors and admirers. In pioneering a fresh and richly imagined awareness of national history for a post-World War II generation of Australians, Clark was an inspiring teacher. He encouraged his students to work with primary source materials. In doing so he assembled for publication three volumes of Australian historical documents that brought the underpinnings of Australian history into the ken of general readers. The publication of these documents served as something of a dress rehearsal for the great task Clark set himself: to write a version of the Australian story he conceived in grandeur and tragedy, nobility and ordinariness. As Carl Bridge has noted, Clark’s History has been seen by some as ‘a majestic blue gum of Australian historical scholarship’, and by others as ‘gooey subjective pap’. With the appearance of each volume, reviewers were sharply divided about the merits of Clark’s style, his interpretation, and even the veracity of his history. But while doubts remain, distance has conceded to the History its standing as a work of literature of the imagination that might sit in the same company as the paintings of Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan, or the novels of Patrick White.

I’ve always wanted to begin by declaring an interest. Roslyn Russell’s Literary Links gives me at last the opportunity I’ve been waiting for: so, I declare an interest – and only some very stern editing will prevent me from saying why!