15 Minutes of...
POETS' CORNER

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61 Henry Kendall
B.E. Minns, Kendall's Cottage, c.1930s. Etching, initialled and titled Henry Kendall's Gosford Home in the plate; titled and initialled below, 8.7 x 12.1cm.
The Australian poet, Henry Kendall (1839-1882) was born at Yatteyattah, near Milton, N.S.W. His verse was a triumph over a life of adversity.

$390
62 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Photograph by J.W. Black, c.1860s. Albumen paper print carte de visite, 8.9 x 5.5cm. Several pin holes to backing, not affecting image.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet. His works include the epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855), based on the legends and stories of the Ojibway tribe, which caused a great deal of excitement, using Indian themes imaginatively for the first time in American literature.

$490
63 Bernard O'Dowd
David Low, Bernard O'Dowd. Poet, 1919. Pen & ink drawing, signed lower right, 29 x 9.3cm.
Rare Australian work. Published in The Bulletin, Feb 20th 1919. Bernard O'Dowd (1866-1953), poet, journalist and public servant, was an opponent of Federation and contributed many satirical poems about Federation to the radical journal Tocsin. O'Dowd's best known poem is 'The Bush', written in 1912. He worked with the Victorian Supreme Court for many years while also being involved in literature, publishing and politics.
(Source: National Library of Australia)

$850

64 A.B. Banjo Paterson
Autograph letter signed, to Dorothea Mackellar in response to her letter regarding a literary club, Redbank, 2 June 1931. Blue note paper, manuscript both sides in ink.
The letter reads: I think the idea of a fellowship a good one, but I have seen a lot of such movements die out here... Why not found a club, like the Savage Club in London… open to all people of literary or artistic instincts... My experience is that a fellowship limited to poets and writers is not sufficiently broadly based to have any more than a temporary existence. Paterson adds a P.S., Would like to know what you think of the Club idea. Apparently not too much! In 1931, Dorothea Mackellar, (who had ceased writing in the 1920s due to ill health) along with Ruth Bedford, established the Sydney branch of the London-based international literary society, P.E.N. (Poets, Essayists, Novelists). She wrote letters to many writers and poets, asking if they would be interested in joining. This letter from A.B. Paterson is in response to one such enquiry. Founding members included C.E.W. Bean, le Gay Brereton, A.H. Chisholm, Zora Cross, George Mackaness, Steele Rudd, Kenneth Slessor, Ethel Turner and many others. (Source: Sydney Literary Societies of 1920s, Dr Lesley Heath, idun.itsc.adfa.edu.au/ASEC/HOBA96) The PEN Sydney Centre is still a branch of the International P.E.N., which was founded in London in 1921: one of its aims was to "Defend literature against the many threats to its survival which the modern world poses". A.B. Paterson (1864-1941) is well-known for his quintessential Australian poems 'The Man from Snowy River', 'Clancy of the Overflow' and 'The Man from Ironbark'. Dorothea Mackellar (1883-1968) wrote her evocative poem, 'My Country', in 1908, her most lasting work and one that has become a national patriotic refrain.

$4,900

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