What do you think?
Rate this book
Australian Collection: Australia's Greatest Books
Gathers selections from important Australian fiction and nonfiction, offers a brief profile of each writer, and includes a critical discussion of each work
406 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
1 person is currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey Dutton
92 books1 followerBorn into a prestigious pastoralist family in South Australia, Dutton served in WWII and studied at Oxford, before becaming a leading light of 20th century Australian writing. His own fiction and poetry received awards in his lifetime, but his legacy has been in his non-fiction writing. His works included extensive texts on the history of Australian literature, art, politics, culture, biography, and travel. Known to all of the great minds of his generation, including his long-time best friend Patrick White, Dutton's influence helped to shape post-war Australian literature, and he received the Order of Australia in 1976. His output was featured in at least 200 books, including 40 solo works, by the time of his death.
Dutton worked behind the scenes as well, as an editor for Penguin and co-founder of Sun Books, and was crucial in founding the Adelaide Festival of the Arts.
Dutton married Ninette (Trott) in 1944, and she played a vital role in his writing and research during their 40-year marriage. After their divorce, Dutton married the writer Robin Lucas. Although he had lived most of his adult life in South Australia, the elder Dutton spent time in Mudgee, New South Wales researching in the late 1980s before moving south again.
In the 1990s, Dutton gave his influence to the Australian Republican Movement, then taking shape during debate over the best direction for the country in the 21st century. Dutton died in 1998, living long enough to see the founding of National Sorry Day, a key component in reconciliation with Aboriginal Australians, but not quite long enough to take part in the referendum on Australia's future, where the cause for republicanism was defeated 45.13% to the monarchy's 54.87%
Dutton worked behind the scenes as well, as an editor for Penguin and co-founder of Sun Books, and was crucial in founding the Adelaide Festival of the Arts.
Dutton married Ninette (Trott) in 1944, and she played a vital role in his writing and research during their 40-year marriage. After their divorce, Dutton married the writer Robin Lucas. Although he had lived most of his adult life in South Australia, the elder Dutton spent time in Mudgee, New South Wales researching in the late 1980s before moving south again.
In the 1990s, Dutton gave his influence to the Australian Republican Movement, then taking shape during debate over the best direction for the country in the 21st century. Dutton died in 1998, living long enough to see the founding of National Sorry Day, a key component in reconciliation with Aboriginal Australians, but not quite long enough to take part in the referendum on Australia's future, where the cause for republicanism was defeated 45.13% to the monarchy's 54.87%
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 6, 2017
A soft five stars. What a find - in a small country town at a charity book stall for a mere $5! Geoffrey Dutton's book is a journey through 100 great books of Australia's first 200 years under white rule, avoiding poetry, plays, and for the most part short stories - but including anything prose-based, including history and journals.
It's a delicate five stars because a) the book is inevitably dated after 35 years, and b) no-one is going to agree with all of the options. Unfortunately, those 35 years mean an awful lot when it comes to multicultural and gender representative literature. At the same time, Dutton was always of the "new school of thought" and he proactively notes that about a third of the books included deal directly with Australia's Indigenous population or their history.
Nevertheless, with those caveats aside, this is sublime. Each book is given a generous discussion as well as a short excerpt and a biography of the author. Dutton reaches back to the very first settlers, examining the more moral men and women who - unfortunately - were not always heard by those in power during our country's complicated past. He restricts himself to one book per author which, although it means some tough decisions with authors like Thea Astley and Patrick White, allows him to run through a wide spectrum. Importantly, this is a luxurious read, happy to delve into all sorts of areas of the public consciousness, and it reminds me how, even as someone with a university education in literature, my knowledge of my own country's literature is average at best. A worthy find.
It's a delicate five stars because a) the book is inevitably dated after 35 years, and b) no-one is going to agree with all of the options. Unfortunately, those 35 years mean an awful lot when it comes to multicultural and gender representative literature. At the same time, Dutton was always of the "new school of thought" and he proactively notes that about a third of the books included deal directly with Australia's Indigenous population or their history.
Nevertheless, with those caveats aside, this is sublime. Each book is given a generous discussion as well as a short excerpt and a biography of the author. Dutton reaches back to the very first settlers, examining the more moral men and women who - unfortunately - were not always heard by those in power during our country's complicated past. He restricts himself to one book per author which, although it means some tough decisions with authors like Thea Astley and Patrick White, allows him to run through a wide spectrum. Importantly, this is a luxurious read, happy to delve into all sorts of areas of the public consciousness, and it reminds me how, even as someone with a university education in literature, my knowledge of my own country's literature is average at best. A worthy find.
July 24, 2022
'The Australian Collection' makes a rather bold (and considering its date of publication, now old) claim that it covers 'Australia's Greatest Books'. Now I would suggest that this is not really an accurate representation of the contents. First off, the selection made by Geoffrey Dutton is limited to prose works, with a focus on novels and to a lesser extent historical texts and journals or biographies. Possible poetry candidates (e.g. 'The Songs of the Sentimental Bloke', 'Around the Boree Log') are excluded as are major non-narrative texts that fall outside the format of the preferred selection (e.g. 'The Female Eunuch'). Secondly, as stated this selection was published in 1985, and thus there is now at least 37 years of excellence in Australian literature that has been excluded. Finally, Dutton's selection is highly personal; he has included many books and authors due to their popularity or appeal to an audience and critical sensibilities that have changed, or are at least mutable depending on the readership of this text.
However, all these points are to some extent redundant because this rather impressively presented book is meant to serve as an introduction to the amazing corpus of books that have been written by Australian authors or about Australia since colonisation/invasion. In a country that still maintains some degree of a cultural cringe about its own intellectual and artistic capabilities, in an age where reading canonical books might well be limited to the stock-standard school or university texts, often written by non-Australian authors, 'The Australian Collection' is a fantastic entry point into our own literary heritage.
Dutton's selections may have problems, as outlined previously, and as will be expanded upon later, it does achieve one significant goal. It will arouse the curiosity of readers in those titles listed. Some are incredibly well known and will not need much of a (re)introduction, such as 'For The Term of His Natural Life', 'Voss' or 'Monkey Grip'. Others on the other hand, including 'No Roads Go By' or 'The Ridge and the River' will be totally new to a current day readership. Critically acclaimed books by authors like David Malouf and Peter Carey are listed alongside popular titles like 'On Our Selection' by Steele Rudd, or children's books (e.g. 'Dot and the Kangaroo'). The selections are eclectic and worthy of further exploration.
That each selection is considered through the application of an extract from the cited book, a critical essay, a biographical note on the author and an illustrative artwork also ensures that 'The Australian Collection' is highly successful in engaging with the reader. Each book takes up four pages, and after reading one can quite reasonably assess both the quality of the considered title and whether it might be worthy of further reading. It is through this book, in earlier less assiduous reading, that I discovered 'Here's Luck' by Lennie Lower and 'Jonah' by Louis Stone. Both of these books are now firm favourites of mine in my Australian collection, and I hope to make further inroads into this fertile area of literary history and culture.
One interesting observation that can be discerned from reading this book is how many of Australia's authors of the mid-Twentieth Century wrote from the perspective of their Communist politics, and this will surprise many who are not familiar with our literary history. On the other hand, Australian authors are seen in this selection to be consistently concerned with issues such as how to resolve the relationship between European colonisers, invaders, and the First Nations peoples. The landscape itself, the physical nature of this country, is seen to be crucial to many selected works as well. The immigrant experience, gender, city life, our humour and how Australia can be fantastical for child and adult alike are all considered in Dutton's selection.
It must be noted that almost all the voices heard through the selection by Dutton are 'stale, male and pale', and this will undoubtedly lead to some hostility for some who might read this book today. Very few indigenous writers are given space; this is a 'whitefellas' anthology. Also it might be argued that the latter parts of the book are dominated by selections from a more 'high-brow' selection of authors and titles. Dutton turns his gaze to those texts that are more worthy of critical praise rather than how they represent or interpret the Australian experience, and it might be argued that these titles will be less interesting.
As stated earlier, this is an old book now, and there are gaps that rebound on its content. Quite a few of the titles listed are no longer in print or are hard to access, and this means that the reader may struggle to actually verify the truthfulness of Dutton's selection. With nearly four decades of book releases since 1985 it would be certain that more recent titles would replace some of those selected (Christos Tsiolkas's 'The Slap' being one that would be considered, and Peter Carey's 'Oscar and Lucinda' may replace 'Bliss). One must keep these limitations in mind when contemplating what to take from 'The Australian Collection'.
So, who will benefit from this book. Hopefully, anyone with a passion for or curiosity in Australian literature. Dutton's book is not perfect nor is it comprehensive. However it provides a most important service for our own stories, our own literary history. It provides a starting place, a talking point for those who want to read Australian books and may need that shove, that hand up to help him or her on their way.
However, all these points are to some extent redundant because this rather impressively presented book is meant to serve as an introduction to the amazing corpus of books that have been written by Australian authors or about Australia since colonisation/invasion. In a country that still maintains some degree of a cultural cringe about its own intellectual and artistic capabilities, in an age where reading canonical books might well be limited to the stock-standard school or university texts, often written by non-Australian authors, 'The Australian Collection' is a fantastic entry point into our own literary heritage.
Dutton's selections may have problems, as outlined previously, and as will be expanded upon later, it does achieve one significant goal. It will arouse the curiosity of readers in those titles listed. Some are incredibly well known and will not need much of a (re)introduction, such as 'For The Term of His Natural Life', 'Voss' or 'Monkey Grip'. Others on the other hand, including 'No Roads Go By' or 'The Ridge and the River' will be totally new to a current day readership. Critically acclaimed books by authors like David Malouf and Peter Carey are listed alongside popular titles like 'On Our Selection' by Steele Rudd, or children's books (e.g. 'Dot and the Kangaroo'). The selections are eclectic and worthy of further exploration.
That each selection is considered through the application of an extract from the cited book, a critical essay, a biographical note on the author and an illustrative artwork also ensures that 'The Australian Collection' is highly successful in engaging with the reader. Each book takes up four pages, and after reading one can quite reasonably assess both the quality of the considered title and whether it might be worthy of further reading. It is through this book, in earlier less assiduous reading, that I discovered 'Here's Luck' by Lennie Lower and 'Jonah' by Louis Stone. Both of these books are now firm favourites of mine in my Australian collection, and I hope to make further inroads into this fertile area of literary history and culture.
One interesting observation that can be discerned from reading this book is how many of Australia's authors of the mid-Twentieth Century wrote from the perspective of their Communist politics, and this will surprise many who are not familiar with our literary history. On the other hand, Australian authors are seen in this selection to be consistently concerned with issues such as how to resolve the relationship between European colonisers, invaders, and the First Nations peoples. The landscape itself, the physical nature of this country, is seen to be crucial to many selected works as well. The immigrant experience, gender, city life, our humour and how Australia can be fantastical for child and adult alike are all considered in Dutton's selection.
It must be noted that almost all the voices heard through the selection by Dutton are 'stale, male and pale', and this will undoubtedly lead to some hostility for some who might read this book today. Very few indigenous writers are given space; this is a 'whitefellas' anthology. Also it might be argued that the latter parts of the book are dominated by selections from a more 'high-brow' selection of authors and titles. Dutton turns his gaze to those texts that are more worthy of critical praise rather than how they represent or interpret the Australian experience, and it might be argued that these titles will be less interesting.
As stated earlier, this is an old book now, and there are gaps that rebound on its content. Quite a few of the titles listed are no longer in print or are hard to access, and this means that the reader may struggle to actually verify the truthfulness of Dutton's selection. With nearly four decades of book releases since 1985 it would be certain that more recent titles would replace some of those selected (Christos Tsiolkas's 'The Slap' being one that would be considered, and Peter Carey's 'Oscar and Lucinda' may replace 'Bliss). One must keep these limitations in mind when contemplating what to take from 'The Australian Collection'.
So, who will benefit from this book. Hopefully, anyone with a passion for or curiosity in Australian literature. Dutton's book is not perfect nor is it comprehensive. However it provides a most important service for our own stories, our own literary history. It provides a starting place, a talking point for those who want to read Australian books and may need that shove, that hand up to help him or her on their way.
January 20, 2013
An excellent and valuable reference covering some of Australia's important books up until the early 1980's. Some of the works are now out of print, some are still in print and easy to find. The reviews also cover the authors life and career. This book makes you want to track down a book that's maybe been out of print for awhile and dropped of the radar.
April 29, 2013
A great introduction to Australia's authors and their great books from 1788 up to the early 1980s.
February 14, 2023
Highly selective but useful survey of Australian literature (excluding drama and verse) up to the mid 80s. Very much reflects the taste of Dutton and his generation.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews