Percival Serle was an Australia

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 biographer and bibliographer

Bibliography

Bibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...

.

Serle was born in Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

 and for many years worked in a life assurance office before becoming chief clerk and accountant at the University of Melbourne

University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...

. He married artist Dora Beatrice Hake.

He ran a second-hand bookshop during the depression; was guide-lecturer at the National Gallery of Victoria

National Gallery of Victoria

The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...

; curator of the Art Museum of the Gallery; and member of the council of the Victorian Artists Society

Victorian Artists Society

Victorian Artists Society established in 1856 in Melbourne, Australia promotes artistic education and exhibition in Australia. Fore-runner of the Victorian Academy of Arts, founded in 1870. In 1888 the Australian Artist's Association amalgamated with the Victorian Academy of Arts to form the...

. He was also president of the Australian Literature Society.

Serle's publications included an edition, with notes, of A Song to David and Other Poems by the 18th century English poet, Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart , also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout...

; A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse: Australia and New Zealand; An Australasian Anthology (with 'Furnley Maurice' and R H Croll); Dictionary of Australian Biography

Dictionary of Australian Biography

The Dictionary of Australian Biography, published in 1949, is a reference work by Percival Serle containing information on notable people associated with Australian history. With approximately a thousand entries, the book took more than twenty years to complete...

; and A Primer of Collecting.

The Dictionary took more than twenty years to complete and contains more than one thousand biographies of prominent Australians or persons closely connected with Australia. Serle comments in the Preface that "I have endeavoured to make the book worthy of its subject. It would have been better could I have spent another five years on it, but at seventy-five years of age one realizes there is a time to make an end."

External links

• Dictionary of Australian Biography (1949) courtesy of Project Gutenberg Australia
  Project Gutenberg Australia
  Project Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. The site hosts free ebooks or e-texts which are in the public domain in Australia. The ebooks have been prepared and submitted by volunteers...
  
  (edited by Serle, contains details of people who died before 1942).