Speeches, 1972-1989

Component identifier:

Series 8

Content Summary:

This series comprises drafts of speeches written and delivered by White in the last two decades of his life. While a small number of the speeches relate to awards that he received, most present White's views on contemporary issues with which he was particularly concerned. Topics covered in the speeches include the Green Ban movement, patriotism, nuclear disarmament, democracy, human rights and the environment, with many containing interesting insights as to White's philosophy and world view. Also of interest is a speech delivered in Athens at the 10th anniversary celebrations of the Greek student uprising and fall of the military dictatorship, which White attended at the invitation of the Greek Government in 1983.

Immediate source of acquisition:

During White's lifetime, he asserted that he kept no manuscripts or personal papers, burning his drafts on completion of each work. For many years after his death, it was believed that a single manuscript draft of Memoirs of many in one (1986), donated by White to the anti-apartheid Canon Collins Education Trust for Southern Africa in 1988 and subsequently purchased at auction in 1991 by the National Library of Australia and the State Library of New South Wales, was the only surviving record of White's literary manuscripts. While White does appear to have destroyed a considerable portion of his manuscript material, he clearly retained many literary papers and personal papers until his death. The papers in this collection were in the custody of Manoly Lascaris (White's partner) who died in 2003, and of Barbara Mobbs, White's long-term literary agent and Literary Executor, who presented the collection to the National Library of Australia in 2006.

Names:

White, Patrick, 1912-1990

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