Alfred Stephens
Encyclopedia
The Bulletin
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...
. He was appointed to that position by its owner, J. F. Archibald
J. F. Archibald
Jules François Archibald, known as J. F. Archibald, , Australian journalist and publisher, was co-owner and editor of The Bulletin during the days of its greatest influence in Australian politics and literary life...
in 1894.
Early Life and Journalism
Stephens was born at Toowoomba, QueenslandToowoomba, Queensland
Toowoomba is a city in Southern Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital city, Brisbane. With an estimated district population of 128,600, Toowoomba is Australia's second largest inland city and its largest non-capital inland city...
. His father, Samuel George Stephens, came from Swansea
Swansea
Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and his mother, originally Euphemia Russell, was born in Greenock
Greenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. He was educated at Toowoomba Grammar School
Toowoomba Grammar School
Toowoomba Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, day and boarding grammar school for boys, in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia....
until he was 15, and had a good grounding in English, French, and the classics, but his education was later much extended by wide reading. His father was part-owner of the Darling Downs Gazette, and in its composing room the boy developed his first interest in printing.
On leaving school he was employed in the printing department of William Henry Groom, proprietor of the Toowoomba Chronicle, and later in the business of A. W. Beard, printer and bookbinder of George Street
George Street, Sydney
George Street is one of Sydney's most notable city streets. There are more high rise buildings and more ASX 100 companies located here than anywhere else in Australia, and is well known for being busy around-the-clock...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. He was learning much that was to be invaluable to him in his later career as journalist and editor. He returned to Queensland and in 1889 was editor of the Gympie Miner. A year or two later he became sub-editor of The Boomerang at Brisbane, which had been founded by William Lane
William Lane
William Lane was a journalist, advocate of Australian labour politics and a utopian.-Early life:Lane was born in Bristol, England, eldest son of James Lane,from Ireland a Protestant Master Gardener , and his English wife Caroline, née Hall...
in 1887, but though this journal had able contributors it fell into financial trouble, and in 1891 Stephens went to Cairns to become editor and part proprietor of the local Argus.
On the Boomerang he had had valuable experience as a reviewer of literature, on the Argus he enlarged his knowledge of Queensland politics. In 1892 he won a prize of £25 for an essay "Why North Queensland Wants Separation", published in 1893. and in this year was also published "The Griffilwraith", an able piece of pamphleteering attacking the coalition of the old rivals, Sir Samuel Griffith
Samuel Griffith
Sir Samuel Walker Griffith GCMG QC, was an Australian politician, Premier of Queensland, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia and a principal author of the Constitution of Australia.-Early life:...
and Sir Thomas McIlwraith
Thomas McIlwraith
Sir Thomas McIlwraith KCMG was for many years the dominant figure of colonial politics in Queensland. He was Premier of Queensland from 1877 to 1883, again in 1888, and for a third time in 1893...
.
The Bulletin
In April 1893 having sold his share in the Cairns paper he left Australia for San Francisco, travelled across the continent, and thence to Great BritainGreat Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He had begun to do some journalistic work in London when he received the offer from J. F. Archibald
J. F. Archibald
Jules François Archibald, known as J. F. Archibald, , Australian journalist and publisher, was co-owner and editor of The Bulletin during the days of its greatest influence in Australian politics and literary life...
of a position on The Bulletin
The Bulletin
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...
. He returned to Australia and arrived at Sydney in January 1894. His account of his travels, "A Queenslander's Travel Notes", published in that year, though bright enough in its way suggests a curiously insensitive Stephens.
Stephens began work on The Bulletin as a sub-editor, and it was not until after the middle of 1896 that he developed the famous "Red Page" reviews of literature printed on the inside of the cover. They were at first little concerned with work done in Australia, but as the years went by Australians were given their due share of the space. But Stephens was also acting as a literary agent, and in this way came in touch with and influenced much the rising school of Australian poets. He prepared for publication in 1897 a collected edition of the verses of Barcroft Boake
Barcroft Boake
Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake was an Australian poet.Born in Sydney, Boake worked as a surveyor and a boundary rider, but is best remembered for his poetry, a volume of which was published five years after his death....
, with a sympathetic and able account of his life, and during the next 20 years he saw through the press, volumes of verse by Arthur Henry Adams
Arthur Henry Adams
Arthur Henry Adams was a journalist and author. He started his career in New Zealand, though he spent most of it in Australia, and for a short time resided in China and London.-Biography:...
, W. H. Ogilvie
William Henry Ogilvie
William Henry Ogilvie was a Scottish-Australian narrative poet and horseman. He was born near Kelso, Borders, Scotland and arrived in Australia in 1889 returning to Scotland after a decade....
, Roderic Quinn, James Hebblethwaite
James Hebblethwaite
James Hebblethwaite was an English-born Australian poet, teacher and clergyman.Hebblethwaite was born in Preston, Lancashire, England, the son of William Hebblethwaite, a corn miller, and his wife Margaret, née Cundall...
, Hubert Newman Wigmore Church
Hubert Newman Wigmore Church
Hubert Newman Wigmore Church was an Australian poet.Church was born in Hobart, Tasmania, the son of Hubert Day Church and his wife Mary Ann. His father, a barrister, came from Somerset and was a descendant of the family of John Hampden. Hubert Church was taken to England when eight years old, and...
, Bernard O'Dowd
Bernard O'Dowd
Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was an Australian activist, educator, poet, journalist, and author of several law books and poetry books. O'Dowd worked as an assistant-librarian and later Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman in the Supreme Court at Melbourne for 48 years;he was also a co-publisher and writer...
, C. H. Souter, Robert Crawford
Robert Crawford (poet)
Robert Crawford was an Australian poet.Crawford was born in Doonside, New South Wales, the son of Robert Crawford senior, and was educated at The King's School, Parramatta, and the University of Sydney. Crawford settled on a farm as his forefathers had done, but not being successful, became a...
, Shaw Neilson
Shaw Neilson
John Shaw Neilson , was an Australian poet. Slightlybuilt, for most of his life, John Shaw Neilson worked as a labourer, fruit-picking, clearing scrub, navvying and working in quarries, and, after 1928, working as a messenger with the Country Roads Board in Melbourne...
and others. In prose he recognized the value of Joseph Furphy
Joseph Furphy
Joseph Furphy , is widely regarded as the "Father of the Australian novel". He mostly wrote under the pseudonym Tom Collins, and is best known for his novel Such is Life , regarded as an Australian classic.-Biography:Furphy was born at Yering Station in Yering, Victoria...
's Such is Life, and succeeded in getting it published in spite of the realisation of The Bulletin's proprietary that money would be lost in doing so.
Later career
In October 1906 Stephens left The Bulletin, the exact occasion for the break has never been known.. For the remaining 27 years of his life Stephens was a freelance writer except for a brief period as a leader writer on the Wellington Post in 1907. While he was with The Bulletin he had published a small volume of his own verses, "Oblation", in 1902; "The Red Pagan", a collection of his criticisms from the "Red Page" appeared in 1904, and a short but interesting biography of Victor DaleyVictor Daley
Victor James William Patrick Daley was an Australian poet.He was born at the Navan, County Armagh, Ireland, and was educated at the Christian Brothers at Devonport in England. He arrived in Australia in 1878, and became a freelance journalist and writer in both Melbourne and Sydney...
in the same year. He had also brought out five numbers of a little literary magazine called The Bookfellow in 1899. This was revived as a weekly for some months in 1907, and with variations in the title, numbers appeared at intervals until 1925. He supported himself by freelance journalism, by lecturing, he visited Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and gave a course of four lectures on Australian poets in 1914, and by acting as a literary agent. His quest of a living was a constant struggle, but he never complained. He was joint author with Albert Dorrington of a novel, "The Lady Calphurnia Royal", published in 1909, in 1911 a collection of prose and verse, "The Pearl and the Octopus", appeared, and in 1913 "Bill's Idees", sketches about a reformed Sydney larrikin. A collection of his interviews was published in 1921, "School Plays" in 1924, a short account of Henry Kendall
Henry Kendall (poet)
Thomas Henry Kendall was a nineteenth century Australian poet.-Biography:Kendall was born near Ulladulla, New South Wales. He was registered as Thomas Henry Kendall, but never appears to have used his first name. His three volumes of verse were all published under the name of "Henry Kendall". His...
in 1928, and just before his own death a biography of Christopher Brennan
Christopher Brennan
Christopher John Brennan was an Australian poet and scholar.-Biography:Brennan was born in Sydney, to Christopher Brennan , a brewer, and his wife Mary Ann , née Carroll, both Irish immigrants....
.
Stephens died suddenly at Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, on 15 April 1933. He had married Constance Ivingsbelle Smith in 1894, who survived him with two sons and four daughters. A collection of his prose writings with an introductory memoir by Vance Palmer, A. G. Stephens: His Life and Work, was published in 1941. An interesting collection of his manuscripts is at the Mitchell Library
State Library of New South Wales
The State Library of New South Wales is a large public library owned by the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located in Macquarie Street, Sydney near Shakespeare Place...
, Sydney.
A. G. Stephens wrote a fair amount of verse, for which he claimed no more than that it was "quite good rhetorical verse". He was an excellent interviewer because he was really interested in his subjects, and he was a remarkably good critic, largely because he had an original analytic mind, and also because he fully realized how difficult the art of criticism is.