VANCE PALMER PAPERS: SHORT STORIES

Component identifier:

Series 4

Content Summary:

Cecil Hadgraft wrote of Vance Palmer 'As a writer of short stories he must rank among the Australian writers of that difficult form'. Although Vance was forced to turn out literally hundreds of melodramatic tales for the popular taste he was highly concerned about which of this work should be regarded as his serious writings.

After The world of men he published only three volumes of short stories: Separate lives (1931), Sea and spinifex (1934) and Let the birds fly (1955).

Many of the short stories which Vance did not select for inclusion in these volumes are in this series. Handwritten (Items 1-6) and typescript (Items 7-19) drafts have been preserved as well as some published versions from newspapers and magazines spanning the years 1916-1963 (Items 20-76).

See also Series 7 Item 1.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The first and largest consignment of the Vance and Nettie Palmer collection wasreceived by the National Library in 1965 from their daughters Aileen and HelenPalmer, after some years of negotiations. Further batches arrived in 1966 and 1967.It was found necessary to house the collection in different parts of the Library, foran important part of it consisted of non-manuscript material. The large library ofbooks and pamphlets are housed as a distinct collection in the Australian book stackswith each publication bearing a special Palmer book plate. The portraits of thePalmer and Higgins families are held in the Pictorial Section.

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