Historical information

Edward Vivian (Vance) Palmer (1885-1959), writer, was born on 28 August 1885 at Bundaberg, Queensland, seventh child of Australian-born Henry Burnet Palmer, schoolteacher, and his Irish wife Jessie, née Carson. He began to write, especially for Steele Rudd's Magazine: 'Rudd' encouraged him and in 1905 published his article, 'An Australian national art', which foreshadowed his basic attitudes. He won a modest place in the English literary world, associating with Katherine Mansfield, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, Frank Harris, Herbert Read and Will Dyson. On 23 May 1914 in London Palmer married Janet Gertrude Higgins (Nettie). His first volumes of stories and sketches, The World of Men, and poetry, Forerunners, were published in London in 1915, His second volume of verse, The Camp (1920), contained his best-known poem, 'The farmer remembers the Somme'. A liberal socialist of the broad left, Palmer made his last overseas trip in 1955 to Helsinki as delegate to the World Peace Council. He had declined the offer of an O.B.E. After the war Palmer had returned to writing fiction. In 1948 Golconda appeared—the first of a trilogy broadly inspired by the life of E. G. Theodore, novels which are among his best. Moreover, in these years he wrote some of his finest stories, gathered in Let the Birds Fly (1955); and he published with Margaret Sutherland the pioneering work, Old Australian Bush Ballads (1951). He began working on his reminiscences; Intimate Portraits (1969) demonstrates again his biographical talent. The Palmers' partnership was dedicated to promotion of a national literature in a period when few were interested in Australian arts and letters. They emerged as leaders of a profession only beginning to recognize itself; for thirty years and more they (usually Nettie) wrote appreciatively and helpfully, assuring friendship and hospitality, to the author of any book of quality. They were essentially 'intellectuals, deeply concerned with the world of ideas'—their strength was in combining knowledge of world literature and international standards with passionate devotion to fostering national writing.

Significance

The book is socially and artistically significant as it is written by Vance Palmer who was a significant figure in Australian art circles

Physical description

Red hard cover book with buff dust jacket, illustration of two men standing near a mine winch. Dust jacket taped to book

Inscriptions & markings

Marion Preston, $6