Marjorie Barnard
Encyclopedia
Marjorie Faith Barnard AO (16 August 18978 May 1987) was an Australia
n novelist and short story writer, critic, historian - and librarian. She went to school and university in Sydney, and then trained as a librarian. She was employed as a librarian for two periods in her life (1923–1935 and 1942–1950), but her main passion was writing.
Barnard met her collaborator, Flora Eldershaw
(1897–1956), at the University of Sydney, and they published their first novel, A House is Built in 1929. Their collaboration spanned the next two decades, and covered the full range of their writing: fiction, history and literary criticism. They published under the pseudonym M. Barnard Eldershaw
. Marjorie Barnard was a significant part of the literary scene in Australia between the wars and, for both her work as M. Barnard Eldershaw and in her own right, is recognised as a major figure in Australian letters.
, Sydney
, to Ethel Frances and Oswald Holme Barnard, and was their only surviving child. She had polio as a child and was taught by a governess until she was 10 years old. She then attended the Cambridge School and Sydney Girls High School
. After high school, she went to the University of Sydney
, from which she graduated with first class honours and the first University Medal for History in 1918. She was offered a scholarship to Oxford, but her father refused her permission to go, and so she trained as a librarian at the Sydney Teachers' College. She worked as a librarian at the Public Library of New South Wales
and then the Sydney Technical College until 1935 when she left to write full-time, at the encouragement of her friend, writer and literary critic, Nettie Palmer, and made possible through a small allowance from her father. She wrote to Nettie Palmer at the time that she was seeking "some sort of fulfilment, to run my vital energy into a creative mould instead of just letting it soak into the thirsty sand of a daily round".
She joined the Fellowship of Australian Writers
in 1935, of which Flora Eldershaw
was President for a couple of terms. During the next five years, she, Flora Eldershaw and Frank Dalby Davison
were known as "the triumvirate" for their joint work on political and cultural policy. As well as Flora Eldershaw and Frank Dalby Davison, Marjorie Barnard knew many of the leading writers of her time, including Vance and Nettie Palmer
, Miles Franklin
, Katharine Susannah Prichard
, Eleanor Dark
, Xavier Herbert
and Patrick White
.
Barnard travelled overseas several times, the first time in 1933 with her mother. She loved travel but in 1986 stated that "I think it's dangerous for writers to leave their roots. I am - was - an Australian writer".
In the late 1930s, though she still lived at home, she and Flora Eldershaw took a flat in Potts Point where they held regular gatherings which operated something like a literary salon. Many of the leading literary and cultural figures of the time visited the flat, and it was here that she was able to spend time with Frank Dalby Davison whom she admitted many years later had been her love. She wrote of this relationship to her writer friend, Jean Devanny
, "I was deeply in love with him ... We were lovers for eight years ... In 1942 I knew things were coming to an end ... I was, as he said, very naïve". She admitted to Devanny that the break-up of this relationship was the cause of a serious illness.
Her father died in 1940, leaving her with an ailing mother. She returned to library work in 1942, at the Public Library of New South Wales and then the CSIRO. However, her mother's death in 1949 left her 'modestly independent' enabling her to leave work in 1950.
Marjorie Barnard never married, and destroyed essentially all her correspondence. However, several of her correspondents, particularly Nettie Palmer and Jean Devanny, kept her letters to them, and some of these are now held in Australian libraries and archives, such as the National Library of Australia
.
She died at Point Clare
on the Central Coast of New South Wales, in 1987, aged 89.
prize, she and Eldershaw wrote their first collaborative novel, A House is Built, which went on to win the prize in 1928, shared with Katharine Susannah Prichard's Coonardoo.
Using the pseudonym M. Barnard Eldershaw, they wrote five novels, as well as a wide range of non-fiction works including histories and criticisms, such as their well-regarded Essays in Australian Fiction (1938). This book contained essays on Henry Handel Richardson
, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Leonard Mann
, Martin Boyd
(under his pseudonym Martin Mills), Christina Stead
and Eleanor Dark.
Their final collaborative novel was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It was published in 1945 as Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It is considered to be one of Australia's major early science fiction novels and was highly regarded by Australia's only Nobel Prize
winner for literature, Patrick White
. However, it was censored for political reasons at the time and was not published in its entirety until Virago Press
reissued it in 1983.
While it is generally accepted that Barnard was the more expressive writer of the two, and that Eldershaw contributed her acute critical sense, Rorabacher also states that in their early collaborative novels it is impossible to distinguish their separate contributions. Overall, Barnard did more of the creative writing while Eldershaw focused on the structure and development of their major works. However, because Eldershaw was the more outgoing and articulate of the two, it was frequently assumed, at the time, that she was the dominant partner. This did not spoil their partnership, which lasted two decades, bearing testament to the fact that both derived value from it.
After Eldershaw's death, Barnard continued to write, mostly histories and literary criticism, including, in 1967, the first biography of Miles Franklin
. She admired Franklin's character and energy but was less enamoured of her literary abilities, writing that 'her writings are eclipsed by her personality' and that 'she was no philosopher, displayed little skill in constructing her books, and not much originality in plot.'
Her History of Australia, published in 1963, was well-reviewed at the time. One reviewer compared it favourably with histories by Keith Hancock
, A.G.L. Shaw, Max Crawford and Douglas Pike, writing that she "writes good narrative prose and avoids, on the whole, analysis, although she can provide good commonsense summaries (as on the convict tradition or the Federation movement) when she wishes". He goes on to say that "her argument is not original, but she states it with clarity, a well-calculated density of detail, and with authority, especially when she writes on the subject she knows best, Macquarie
's world". He does however note that there are some errors and inconsistencies, and gaps in the bibliography.
(FAW) functioned as a trade union of professional writers and that it adopted progressive positions on political questions. It was this work that resulted in their being known as 'the triumvirate'. Fiona Capp writes, for example, that through the FAW Barnard and Eldershaw actively lobbied against National Security regulations and infringements on the freedom of speech.
Barnard regarded herself as a 'nineteenth century liberal' and defined herself as a pacifist. In 1940, she joined the Peace Pledge Union
. She edited a collection of essays defending freedom, which was not published, and a pamphlet The Case for the Future, which was banned by the censor. She also joined the Australian Labor Party
as confirmed in several letters to Nettie Palmer, although later denied that she had ever joined. Dever suggests that this denial may be due to the Cold War
witch hunts of the 1950s in which her name, among others, was mentioned. She suggests that Barnard received more criticisim at that time than Eldershaw, who was frequently defended as a member of the CLF Advisory Board, and that, not being fond of publicity, she was likely to have been "deeply disturbed" by "the accusations and embarrassingly public attention".
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n novelist and short story writer, critic, historian - and librarian. She went to school and university in Sydney, and then trained as a librarian. She was employed as a librarian for two periods in her life (1923–1935 and 1942–1950), but her main passion was writing.
Barnard met her collaborator, Flora Eldershaw
Flora Eldershaw
Flora Sydney Patricia Eldershaw was an Australian novelist, critic and historian. With Marjorie Barnard she formed the writing collaboration known as M. Barnard Eldershaw...
(1897–1956), at the University of Sydney, and they published their first novel, A House is Built in 1929. Their collaboration spanned the next two decades, and covered the full range of their writing: fiction, history and literary criticism. They published under the pseudonym M. Barnard Eldershaw
M. Barnard Eldershaw
M. Barnard Eldershaw was the pseudonym used by the twentieth century Australian literary collaborators Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw...
. Marjorie Barnard was a significant part of the literary scene in Australia between the wars and, for both her work as M. Barnard Eldershaw and in her own right, is recognised as a major figure in Australian letters.
Life
Barnard was born in AshfieldAshfield, New South Wales
Ashfield is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Ashfield is about 9 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Ashfield.The official name for the...
, 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...
, to Ethel Frances and Oswald Holme Barnard, and was their only surviving child. She had polio as a child and was taught by a governess until she was 10 years old. She then attended the Cambridge School and Sydney Girls High School
Sydney Girls High School
Sydney Girls High School is an academically selective, Public high school for girls, located at Moore Park, in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
. After high school, she went to the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
, from which she graduated with first class honours and the first University Medal for History in 1918. She was offered a scholarship to Oxford, but her father refused her permission to go, and so she trained as a librarian at the Sydney Teachers' College. She worked as a librarian at the Public Library of New South Wales
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...
and then the Sydney Technical College until 1935 when she left to write full-time, at the encouragement of her friend, writer and literary critic, Nettie Palmer, and made possible through a small allowance from her father. She wrote to Nettie Palmer at the time that she was seeking "some sort of fulfilment, to run my vital energy into a creative mould instead of just letting it soak into the thirsty sand of a daily round".
She joined the Fellowship of Australian Writers
Fellowship of Australian Writers
The Fellowship of Australian Writers, also known as FAW, was established in Sydney in 1928. Its aim is to bring writers together and promote their interests...
in 1935, of which Flora Eldershaw
Flora Eldershaw
Flora Sydney Patricia Eldershaw was an Australian novelist, critic and historian. With Marjorie Barnard she formed the writing collaboration known as M. Barnard Eldershaw...
was President for a couple of terms. During the next five years, she, Flora Eldershaw and Frank Dalby Davison
Frank Dalby Davison
Frank Dalby Davison , also known as F.D. Davison and Freddie Davison, was an Australian novelist and short story writer...
were known as "the triumvirate" for their joint work on political and cultural policy. As well as Flora Eldershaw and Frank Dalby Davison, Marjorie Barnard knew many of the leading writers of her time, including Vance and Nettie Palmer
Vance and Nettie Palmer
Vance and Nettie Palmer were two of Australia's best-known literary figures from the 1920s to the 1950s. Edward Vivian "Vance" Palmer was a novelist, dramatist, essayist and critic. Janet Gertrude "Nettie" Palmer was a poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic...
, Miles Franklin
Miles Franklin
Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, known as Miles Franklin was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published in 1901...
, Katharine Susannah Prichard
Katharine Susannah Prichard
Katharine Susannah Prichard was an Australian author and co-founding member of the Communist Party of Australia.-Biography:...
, Eleanor Dark
Eleanor Dark
Eleanor Dark was an Australian author whose novels included Prelude to Christopher and Return to Coolami , both winners of the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal for literature, and her best known work The Timeless Land .-Life and career:Eleanor Dark was born in Sydney...
, Xavier Herbert
Xavier Herbert
Xavier Herbert was an Australian writer best known for his Miles Franklin Award-winning novel Poor Fellow My Country . He is considered one of the elder statesmen of Australian literature...
and Patrick White
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White , an Australian author, is widely regarded as an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative...
.
Barnard travelled overseas several times, the first time in 1933 with her mother. She loved travel but in 1986 stated that "I think it's dangerous for writers to leave their roots. I am - was - an Australian writer".
In the late 1930s, though she still lived at home, she and Flora Eldershaw took a flat in Potts Point where they held regular gatherings which operated something like a literary salon. Many of the leading literary and cultural figures of the time visited the flat, and it was here that she was able to spend time with Frank Dalby Davison whom she admitted many years later had been her love. She wrote of this relationship to her writer friend, Jean Devanny
Jean Devanny
Jane Devanny was an Australian writer and Communist. Born in Ferntown, New Zealand, she migrated to Australia in 1929, eventually moving to Townsville in northern Queensland, where she died at the age of 68....
, "I was deeply in love with him ... We were lovers for eight years ... In 1942 I knew things were coming to an end ... I was, as he said, very naïve". She admitted to Devanny that the break-up of this relationship was the cause of a serious illness.
Her father died in 1940, leaving her with an ailing mother. She returned to library work in 1942, at the Public Library of New South Wales and then the CSIRO. However, her mother's death in 1949 left her 'modestly independent' enabling her to leave work in 1950.
Marjorie Barnard never married, and destroyed essentially all her correspondence. However, several of her correspondents, particularly Nettie Palmer and Jean Devanny, kept her letters to them, and some of these are now held in Australian libraries and archives, such as the National Library of Australia
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
.
She died at Point Clare
Point Clare, New South Wales
Point Clare is a suburb of the Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, located southwest of Gosford's central business district on the western shore of Brisbane Water...
on the Central Coast of New South Wales, in 1987, aged 89.
Career
Marjorie Barnard's writing career spanned four decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, with the majority of her works being written in the 1930s-1940s, a period in Australia noted for its flowering of women writers. Despite this, in an interview in 1986, she stated that there was no such thing as a "woman writer", that "there are writers good and bad. Only the work counts". In the same interview, she also said, "I never achieved what I set out to do; I never achieved the goals I set myself for each book. I suppose the only exception to that would be The Persimmon Tree". She wrote little in the last twenty years of her life.Collaboration
Barnard's writing career was inspired by her meeting Flora Eldershaw in her first year at university, and her first work was a children's book, The Ivory Gate, published in 1920. However, on seeing an advertisement for The BulletinThe 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...
prize, she and Eldershaw wrote their first collaborative novel, A House is Built, which went on to win the prize in 1928, shared with Katharine Susannah Prichard's Coonardoo.
Using the pseudonym M. Barnard Eldershaw, they wrote five novels, as well as a wide range of non-fiction works including histories and criticisms, such as their well-regarded Essays in Australian Fiction (1938). This book contained essays on Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson, the pseudonym used by Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, was an Australian author. She took the name "Henry Handel" because at that time, many people did not take women's writing seriously, so she used a male name...
, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Leonard Mann
Leonard Mann
-Life:He served in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I, and with the Department of Aircraft Production in World War II.-External links:*...
, Martin Boyd
Martin Boyd
Martin à Beckett Boyd was a member of Australia’s most prolific artistic dynasty of painters, sculptors, potters, writers, architects, graphic designers and musicians....
(under his pseudonym Martin Mills), Christina Stead
Christina Stead
Christina Stead was an Australian novelist and short-story writer acclaimed for her satirical wit and penetrating psychological characterisations.-Biography:...
and Eleanor Dark.
Their final collaborative novel was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It was published in 1945 as Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It is considered to be one of Australia's major early science fiction novels and was highly regarded by Australia's only Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winner for literature, Patrick White
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White , an Australian author, is widely regarded as an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative...
. However, it was censored for political reasons at the time and was not published in its entirety until Virago Press
Virago Press
Virago is a British publishing company founded in 1973 by Carmen Callil to publish books by women writers. Both new works and reissued books by neglected authors have featured on the imprint's list....
reissued it in 1983.
While it is generally accepted that Barnard was the more expressive writer of the two, and that Eldershaw contributed her acute critical sense, Rorabacher also states that in their early collaborative novels it is impossible to distinguish their separate contributions. Overall, Barnard did more of the creative writing while Eldershaw focused on the structure and development of their major works. However, because Eldershaw was the more outgoing and articulate of the two, it was frequently assumed, at the time, that she was the dominant partner. This did not spoil their partnership, which lasted two decades, bearing testament to the fact that both derived value from it.
Solo career
Barnard's most successful fictional work written in her own right is The Persimmon Tree and Other Stories (1943). It was reissued by Virago in 1985, with the inclusion of three additional stories not previously published in book form. The title story, The Persimmon Tree, is one of Australia's most anthologised stories. The stories were published soon after the end of her relationship with Davison, and were seen by Barnard as some "compensation for the hurt that was integral to their production". As Dever writes, "stories such as ‘The Persimmon Tree’, ‘The Woman Who Did the Right Thing’ and ‘Beauty is Strength’ take as their themes the consequences of illicit love, rivalry between women and the withdrawal and stoicism sometimes demanded of injured lovers".After Eldershaw's death, Barnard continued to write, mostly histories and literary criticism, including, in 1967, the first biography of Miles Franklin
Miles Franklin
Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, known as Miles Franklin was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published in 1901...
. She admired Franklin's character and energy but was less enamoured of her literary abilities, writing that 'her writings are eclipsed by her personality' and that 'she was no philosopher, displayed little skill in constructing her books, and not much originality in plot.'
Her History of Australia, published in 1963, was well-reviewed at the time. One reviewer compared it favourably with histories by Keith Hancock
Keith Hancock
Sir Keith Hancock KBE was an Australian historian.He was born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of Archdeacon William Hancock. At the age of nine, he won the Royal Humane Society's medal for rescuing another child from drowning in the Mitchell River. He was educated at Melbourne Grammar School...
, A.G.L. Shaw, Max Crawford and Douglas Pike, writing that she "writes good narrative prose and avoids, on the whole, analysis, although she can provide good commonsense summaries (as on the convict tradition or the Federation movement) when she wishes". He goes on to say that "her argument is not original, but she states it with clarity, a well-calculated density of detail, and with authority, especially when she writes on the subject she knows best, Macquarie
Lachlan Macquarie
Major-General Lachlan Macquarie CB , was a British military officer and colonial administrator. He served as the last autocratic Governor of New South Wales, Australia from 1810 to 1821 and had a leading role in the social, economic and architectural development of the colony...
's world". He does however note that there are some errors and inconsistencies, and gaps in the bibliography.
Politics
While she never joined a political party, she was affected by the social and political upheavals of the 1930s. During this period, Barnard, Eldershaw and Frank Dalby Davison worked together to ensure the Fellowship of Australian WritersFellowship of Australian Writers
The Fellowship of Australian Writers, also known as FAW, was established in Sydney in 1928. Its aim is to bring writers together and promote their interests...
(FAW) functioned as a trade union of professional writers and that it adopted progressive positions on political questions. It was this work that resulted in their being known as 'the triumvirate'. Fiona Capp writes, for example, that through the FAW Barnard and Eldershaw actively lobbied against National Security regulations and infringements on the freedom of speech.
Barnard regarded herself as a 'nineteenth century liberal' and defined herself as a pacifist. In 1940, she joined the Peace Pledge Union
Peace Pledge Union
The Peace Pledge Union is a British pacifist non-governmental organization. It is open to everyone who can sign the PPU pledge: "I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war...
. She edited a collection of essays defending freedom, which was not published, and a pamphlet The Case for the Future, which was banned by the censor. She also joined the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
as confirmed in several letters to Nettie Palmer, although later denied that she had ever joined. Dever suggests that this denial may be due to the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
witch hunts of the 1950s in which her name, among others, was mentioned. She suggests that Barnard received more criticisim at that time than Eldershaw, who was frequently defended as a member of the CLF Advisory Board, and that, not being fond of publicity, she was likely to have been "deeply disturbed" by "the accusations and embarrassingly public attention".
FAW Marjorie Barnard Short Story Award
Barnard provided for a biennial prize in her will, in which $500 is offered as first prize for a short story of 3,000 words. When Yasmine Gooneratne won the award in 1991, it was titled the Marjorie Barnard Literary Award for Fiction.- 2009: Sharyn Munro: "Live at the Bellevue"
- 2007: Geoffrey Dean: "The Man Who Forgot Himself"
- 2005: Jacqueline Winn: "Once More with Feeling"
- Carolline Rhodes
- 1999: Antonia Hildebrand: "To Breathe"
- 1997: Helen Armstrong: "Encounter at Arkadi"
- 1991: Yasmine Gooneratne: A Change of Skies (novel)
Honours and awards
- 1928 The BulletinThe BulletinThe 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...
Prize - 1981 Officer of the Order of Australia (AO)Order of AustraliaThe Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
- 1983 Patrick White AwardPatrick White AwardThe Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize established by Patrick White. White used his 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature award to establish a trust for this prize....
- 1984 NSW Premier's Special AwardNew South Wales Premier's Literary AwardsThe New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards were established in 1979 by the New South Wales Premier Neville Wran. Commenting on its purpose, Wran said: "We want the arts to take, and be seen to take, their proper place in our social priorities...
- 1986 Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of SydneyUniversity of SydneyThe University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
.
As M. Barnard Eldershaw
- A House is Built (1929)
- Green Memory (1931)
- The Glasshouse (1936)
- Plaque with Laurel (1937)
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1945)
As Marjorie Barnard
- Macquarie's World (1941)
- Australian Outline (1943)
- A History of Australia (1962)
- Miles Franklin: A Biography (1967)
As M. Barnard Eldershaw
- Phillip of Australia: An Account of the Settlement of Sydney Cove, 1788-92 (1938)
- Essays in Australian Fiction (1938)
- The Life and Times of Captain George Piper (1939)
- My Australia (1939)