Articles by: Walter Struve
Ask a librarian, Victorian history:
Joyce McGrath — who died on 13 September, one month short of her 100th birthday — was a determined, visionary figure who developed the State Library’s Art, Music and Performing Arts Library (AMPA) into ‘a circle of sunlight’, as her biographer, Jan Harper, wrote.
Ask a librarian, Victorian history:
Last year marked the 75th anniversary of the publication in Melbourne of a novel compared by some to Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’, and described as ‘a lost masterpiece’. The novel in question, ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’, was by M. Barnard Eldershaw, the pseudonym adopted by Marjorie Barnard (1897-1987) and Flora Eldershaw (1897-1956) in a remarkable literary partnership that produced novels, short stories, literary criticism, essays and lectures.
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
For more than half a century, Vance and Nettie Palmer stood as beacons in the Australian literary landscape. In 1985, on the centenary of their births, the Victorian government established the annual Premier’s Literary Awards in their honour. Of particular note to us at the State Library is that it was here that Vance and Nettie first met.
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
For years, writers from around Australia and across the globe, made beelines to Melbourne’s ‘hidden treasure,’ the Collected Works Bookshop in the Nicholas Building. Entering it felt like reaching ‘heaven,’ with Kris and Loretta Hemensley its warm, generous hosts.
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
Brass instrumentalists from the Victorian College of the Arts were positioned in the upper galleries of the State Library’s La Trobe Reading Room (‘the Dome’), and the composer, George Dreyfus, stood on the podium below. There was a sudden, hushed silence. It was Tuesday, 8 July 2003, and the Dome was about to come alive with a bold, bright fanfare written to mark the occasion of its re-opening.
Welcome to our guest blogger – Walter Struve from the Information Services team. At what point do we see family histories as part of broader histories, both national and trans-national,… Read More ›
