Patrick White Press Gallery – Patrick White Catalogue

Press Gallery

Roy de Maistre, Reclining Figure, 1933

As of October 2021, this page is a work in progress, with only items up to 1957 added. More to come chronologically.

See also: Bibliography

[section=1918 – 1939]

(right: PW’s youthful bookplate, designed by Adrian Feint)

1912: Birth record of Patrick Victor White JPG

1918/19: Two letters by Patrick White JPG

1922: Sunday Times – response to the young PW’s pieces written as Red Admiral in that same newspaper. JPG

1935: Pieces on Bread and Butter Women, PW’s first play, in the SMH. 19/1/1935 | 24/1/1935

Brief piece on PW’s sister, Suzanne, in the SMH. Image 1 | Image 2

Bulletin review of The Ploughman and Other Poems JPG

Home: An Australian Quarterly briefly reports on PW’s upcoming play. PDF

1938: Review of Peter Plover’s Party, revue sketch by PW, in the SMH. JPG

Some of Mrs. Victor (Ruth) White’s furniture pieces featured in Home: An Australian Quarterly PDF

Headshot of PW in the same issue as above PDF

1939: Betty Wilson, Bad Time for Playwrights, Sydney Morning Herald, 14/12/1939, on the challenges for White in getting his early play Return to Abyssinia, on the stage in the early months of WWII. JPG

Obituaries of PW’s father, Victor: Argus (JPG) | SMH (JPG)

Notice about PW’s life (containing some inaccuracies) in Bulletin 15/2/1939

W.E. FitzHenry, secretary of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, gives a lecture in which he lists PW as a young writer of importance and significance, alongside Frank Dalby Davison, Xavier Herbert, Kylie Tennant, Eleanor Dark, Dymphna Cusack, and others. SMH 22/4/1939

Headshot of PW in SA Mail, 18/3/1939

“Why Must Australians Always Throw Bricks at Themselves?”, Melbourne Herald 9/8/1939 1 | 2

[endsection]

[section=1940s]

1940: PW has a sketch, La Grande Amoureuse, in a West End review. Argus 3/6/40 | Sydney Sun 9/6/40 (“The mordant wit of Patrick White has delighted London”) | Townsville Daily Bulletin 19/6/40 | SMH 25/6/40 (“Patrick White stakes on very thin ice… and gets away with it because, in the first place, the sketch is extremely witty, and secondly, it is played by Hermione Gingold.” | Daily Telegraph 3/6/40

Sydney Sun 28/1/1940 profiles PW: his experiences in the UK and US, the scuppering of his play Return to Abyssinia due to the war, and his being tired of waiting around “in this morgue of dead enthusiasms”. “Besides”, writes the columnist, Andrea, “Patrick is a person – young, old, a stimulation – of rare gifts.” Page 1 | Page 2

The Home 1/4/40 reports on PW’s fortunes abroad on the page and the stage.

SMH 24/10/1940 reports the engagement of PW’s sister Suzanne, and PW’s completion of his second novel.

SMH, Medal for author of Happy Valley, 19/2/1941 JPG

“Patrick White” piece, Wilson Literary Bulletin (USA) 15, 8/4/1941

Reviews of The Living and the Dead: Argus | Melbourne Herald | Bulletin | SMH

“Andrea” in the Sydney Sun 20/4/1941 ruminates on the young PW, who “if he survives this chaotic world-outburst… will become one of the really chosen in literature.”

“Andrea” again reflects on new letters from PW on 10/8/41, now serving in Egypt:

“It’s an age since I came to this miserable country, with all sorts of ideas about the glamor of Egypt. It has the Nile, I must grant it that in all admiration, but there it stops. It is even difficult to believe in it when you have been sitting in the Western Desert for three months. My consolation is that for ever after I shall be able to cope with a lack of material things. I am flybitten, flea-ridden, sweaty and stinking – washing my own socks in an inch of muddy water. I doubt if I shall ever sink much lower than this.”

The high spot of my life in the R.A.F is three months with the S.A.A.F. I was attached to one of their squadrons as Intelligence Officer in Sudan, and now here. I found the South Africans more stimulating than anyone else I have met in the Service. They have a very strong sense of nationality and great enthusiasm. Returning to the English was like taking up a position behind a locked door.

I am now trying to become a pilot or air-gunner. For one reason to get back to the squadron, and for another, because I am tired of sitting. I want to return a few bombs. A couple of years ago I should have been surprised at myself, but since losing people I am fond of, the war has become a much more personal matter. I am now one of those who would like to see the extermination of the whole German race. Even a good German will breed a bad one. How I wish all of this would come to an end! I want to get back to my own work.

There are five more books I want to write. Gregariousness is getting me down. I want a room to myself and all day to think my thoughts… it’s a long time since I even spoke my own tongue. I am thinking of coming out after the war – first to the States, then to Australia. I have to go to Central Australia for some reason. Europe, I don’t think I could live in any more. It will have to be the States or Australia.”

1942: First professional acknowledgment in book form, profiled in Twentieth Century Writers (1942) Page 1 | Page 2

Mentions of PW at war and the birth of his sister’s child: Grafton Daily Examiner 16/1/42 | Australian Women’s Weekly 17/1/42 | Daily Telegraph 30/11/44

The Daily Telegraph 18/9/42 notes that PW and Katharine Susannah Pritchard are receiving some fame in Soviet Russia. International Literature has apparently noted that “Australia may be proud to produce such a writer” as PW.

1947: Daily Telegraph 27/3/47 reports that Queen Mary, mother of the reigning King George VI, visited PW’s play Return to Abyssinia.

1948: Woman magazine, 22/11/48, An Author and His Dogs [a visit to Dogwoods to meet the Schnauzers]

Adelaide Advertiser 17/1/48 reflects on PW’s career and the American response to The Aunt’s Story.

The release of The Aunt’s Story mentioned in the women’s section of the WA Great Southern Herald 13/2/48 as having “received better reviews from New York than any novel for many months.”

Melbourne Herald 13/3/48 notes that PW’s The Aunt’s Story and Martin Boyd’s Lucinda Brayford are making waves for Australia’s image in the US.

Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate 11/3/48 notes that PW was among those who attended a lecture on feminism, given by Mrs. Ada Holman at the Women Writers’ Society.

1949: Brief piece in Bulletin 5/1/49 noting that PW has returned home to Australia where “he hopes to write more novels and to cultivate olives”.

SMH 26/1/49 reports that PW has lent nine paintings by Roy de Maistre for an exhibition at the (then) National Art Gallery of New South Wales.

SMH 7/4/49 reports that PW and his cousin, Miss Wendy White, will spend Saturday at the [Royal Easter] Show “with his Schnauzer dogs, the first of their breed to be seen in Sydney.” [also includes some other fascinating examples of what mattered in the social pages of 1949.]

From the Sunday Herald 6/2/49:

[endsection]

[section=1950s]

1950s

1950: The Melbourne Herald 5/8/50 (“Do we care about our authors?”) reviews Colin Roderick’s An Introduction to Australian Fiction, in which he alleges that “one admits the subtlety” of White’s The Aunt’s Story “but cannot help denying the artistry.”

1952: The Gosford Times 18/3/52 (Page 1 | Page 2) reports on the showing of Grauvolk dogs, noting that the breed was introduced to Australia by “Mr. Patrick White of Castle Hill” in 1948.

1955: Reviews of The Tree of Man: New York Herald Tribune | Multiple American reviews cited in the SMH | Famous New York Times Book Review item (image only, not readable)

1956: Interviewed by Kylie Tennant, Sydney Morning Herald 22/9/1956, “Writes in ‘stained glass’”. JPG 1 | 2 | 3
Marjorie Barnard, The Four Novels of Patrick White, Meanjin, Winter 1956 Link ^{Subscription Required}

Morgan’s Book Shop and Record Lounge, 8 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, advertises its wares:

Reviews of The Tree of Man: Bulletin Page 1 Page 2 | SMH (1) | Brief mention in Sun Herald women’s section |

Discussion on A.D. Hope’s review: A. Seitz, SMH 21/6 | R. Marsden, SMH 21/6 |

Mr. and Mrs. Warwick Fairfax of Bellevue Hill host a book review evening, with around 100 guests, in which Tree of Man is discussed alongside Nigel Balchin’s Fall of the Sparrow. (SMH 20/7). Five days later, the Bulletin reported that a Lady Plowman hosted a similar night at Bellevue Hill – was this some kind of social competition?

The Tree of Man out in Braille, reports SMH 28/6, “This puts him among the great”.

1957: Interviewed by Ian Moffitt, New York Times Book Review 18/8/1957, “Conversation with Patrick White”. Reprinted in SMH 24/8/1957. JPG 1 | 2

Bulletin (10/4) piece on PW: “White considers himself a professional novelist. One may quarrel with the definition on the ground that he has private means, and therefore doesn’t depend on writing for a livelihoood… but there is no doubt he is a serious writer… A brief conversation left the impression of a pleasant, cultured, highly intelligent person, steering a clear course between the twin faults of authors-in-the-flesh – assertiveness and false modesty.”

SMH (27/10) reports PW’s attendance at a David Jones art sale.

1958: John Thompson, “Australia’s White policy”, Australian Letters 3/4/1958 (about White’s critical reception in Australia). JPG 1 | 2

“Award for best novel”, Daily Telegraph 3/3/1958 re: Tree of Man winning the Miles Franklin]

“Award of £500 to author” Daily Tele 3/4/1958 [as above]

“Patrick White wins £500 novel award” SMH 3/4/1958 – with photo of Menzies, White and Evatt

“The Miles Franklin Award” (Editorial SMH, 4/4/1958), editorial:

“There will surely be wide satisfaction about the choice and, even more, that a substantial Australian tribute should not be lacking among those this remarkable work has won abroad. The Tree of Man and Voss, each a most impressive vision through Australian eyes of aspects of the condition of man, have firmly established Mr. White as a writer of international stature, and we may be thankful for an award which allows us publicly and appropriately to honour his achievement. It may be added too that the Miles Franklin Award itself will be the more valuable hereafter for having been won by a Patrick White.”

Tidbit, SMH 4/4/1958:

“Bachelor novelist Patrick White, who won the first Miles Franklin Award of £500 with his book Voss has no romantic ideas about what he’s going to do with the cash. “I’m going to buy a hi-fi set”, he said. He paused for a moment and added, “AND a kitchen stove”.

SMH 6/4 gossip page reports that PW is soon to take off for six months in Europe

Alan Nicholls, “Miles Franklin Award goes to White’s Novel, Voss”, The Age 12/4/1958

Canberra Times 12/5 reports that R.F. Brissenden will give a lecture on PW at Canberra University College (now ANU)

Reviews of Voss: SMH | Bulletin 1 2 | Max Harris’ response to The Bulletin | Response to Harris |

The Tree of Man is included in a listing of books to help post-war immigrants learn about Australia – ACT Good Neighbour 1/8

1959:

[endsection]

1981: Richard Coleman, “P. White, Mother and Hat”, SMH, 22/12/1981, reflecting on White’s art exhibition. JPG

1983: Michael Le Moignan, “Novels? Patrick White wants the machine gun burst of plays”, SMH 23/7/1983 JPG 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

“The writer who would be a film director… or a chef…”, SMH, 2/10/1983 JPG 1 | 2 | 3

Geraldine O’Brien, “No-One Realises How Frivolous Patrick White Can Be”, SMH 10/12/1983 JPG 1 | 2 | 3

Richard Glover, “There’s Still a Lot of Black in White”, SMH Good Weekend 18/5/1985, p. 27 JPG 1 | 2 | 3 | 4