Guide to the Papers of Kylie Tennant, 1891-1989 (bulk 1933-1988)

Summary

Collection number:

MS 10043

Creator:

Tennant, Kylie

Extent:

7.68 metres and (45 ms boxes + 2 medium folio boxes + 1 map folio + 1 folder)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Kylie Tennant, National Library of Australia, MS 10043, [series/file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The papers in MS 10043 reflect the personal and professional life of Australian writer, Kylie Tennant. They include correspondence, personal documents, notes and notebooks, literary manuscripts, press cuttings, photographs and graphic material. The bulk of the collection comprises correspondence and research material, notes and drafts relating to Tennant's literary works. The papers of Tennant's husband, L.C. Rodd, are present throughout the collection, largely in the form of correspondence. Australian literary figures amongst the correspondents are: Kay Brown, Nancy Cato, Clem Christesen, Robert Darby, Beatrice Davis, Geoffrey Dutton, Miles Franklin, Mary Gilmore, Dorothy Green, Max Harris, Elizabeth Harrower, Tom Inglis Moore, Elizabeth Jolley, Nancy Keesing, David Martin, Stephen Murray-Smith, Nettie Palmer, Nancy Phelan, Hal Porter, Colin Roderick, Peter Scriven, Thomas Shapcott, Douglas Stewart, Judah Waten, Patrick White and Patricia Wrightson. Other correspondents represented in the collection by significant amounts of papers include long-term friend and Maitland City Librarian, Mavis Cribb, the Reverend Alfred Clint, Doris Chadwick, Jack Ross and Tennant's children, Bim (John) and Benison Rodd (45 boxes, 2 fol. boxes, 1 elephant folio).

Biographical Note:

Kathleen ('Kylie') Tennant was born in 1912 and raised in Manly, NSW. Her parents were Thomas Walter and Katherine (née Tollhurst) Tennant. She was educated at a private school in Manly, Brighton College. As a child her interests were reading, writing and acting. In 1932 Tennant married Lewis Charles Rodd, a teacher and social historian, who was to become her typist and unofficial editor. They had two children, Benison and John Laurence ('Bim').

In early life Tennant worked as a journalist, publicity officer for the ABC, barmaid and church sister. With the aim of acquiring first hand experience for her novels, she took to the roads with the unemployed during the 1930s Depression, lived in Sydney slums and with Aboriginal Communities and spent a week in gaol. As her reputation as a writer grew and she took over the role of breadwinner for the family, Tennant took on work as a book reviewer, lecturer, literary adviser and Commonwealth Literary Fund Advisory Board member.

Tennant's novels include Tiburon (1935); The battlers (1941); Ride on stranger (1943); Time enough later (1943); Lost Haven (1946); The joyful condemned (1953, published in its unabridged form with the title Tell morning this in 1967); The honey flow (1956); and Tantavallon (1983). She also wrote Speak you so gently (1959), an account of life in an Aboriginal community; Australia: her story (1953), a popular history of Australia; a biography of H.V.Evatt, Evatt: politics and justice (1970); Ma Jones and the little white cannibals (1967), a collection of short stories; a series of plays and books for children including All the proud tribesmen (1959); Tether a Dragon (1952), a play about Alfred Deakin; The man on the headland (1971), an account of the Diamond Head area of N.S.W.; and an autobiography, The missing heir (1986). She also edited three collections of short stories.

Amongst the awards won by Tennant for her work were the S.H. Prior Memorial Prize for Tiburon and The Battlers, for which she also won the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal, a Commonwealth Jubilee Stage Award for Tether a Dragon, and the Children's Book Council Medal for All the proud tribesmen. Tennant was made AO in 1980.

Tennant's personal life was dogged by tragedy. She nursed her mother, husband and father through their last illnesses. Her son, John ('Bim'), was diagnosed with schizophrenia and died in mysterious circumstances at a young age. Nearing her own death from cancer, Tennant wrote and circulated a 'Last letter to a friend', in which she pleaded for the legalisation of euthanasia.

Tennant died in February 1988, survived by her daughter, Benison Rodd.

Bibliographic Reference(s)

• Austlit database entry for Kylie Tennant, December 2007, http://www.austlit.edu.au.
• Grant, Jane. Kylie Tennant: a life. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2006.
• The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, second edition. Melbourne : Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Tennant, Kylie. The autobiography of Kylie Tennant: the missing heir. South Melbourne, Victoria: Macmillan Co. of Australia, 1986.

Provenance:

The papers of Kylie Tennant were received by the Library in a number of instalments between 1973 and 2007: in 1973 Tennant donated papers relating to her biography of Evatt; in 1976 a large instalment was purchased from Tennant (originally MS 4734); in 1988 an instalment was purchased from Tennant's daughter, Benison Rodd, and her literary executor, Mavis Cribb, via her agents, Curtis Browne (originally MS 7574); and between 1988 and 2007 several small instalments were donated by Benison Rodd (including Acc05/188 (originally MS 7574, file 81a), Acc06/32 and Acc07/72).

Arrangement:

Until 2007, the papers of Kylie Tennant comprised two separate collections: MS 4734 and MS 7574. In 2007 the two collections were amalgamated into a single sequence and at this stage two small consignments, received in 2006 (Acc06/32) and 2007 (Acc07/72), were incorporated into the sequence. A series arrangement largely reflecting that of MS 7574 was applied to the entire collection, now numbered MS 10043.

The order of files within each series follows the order of receipt of material, ie MS 4734, followed by MS 7574, followed by the 2006 and 2007 instalments. Disruption to the order of files moved from the original two collections to the new arrangement has been kept to a minimum, ie runs of files containing similar material have been maintained unless the contents strongly warranted moving them to a separate series. For example, papers of L.C. Rodd (Tennant's husband) appear throughout the collection, whilst files containing only material created or compiled by Rodd can now be found in Series 7. Similarly, papers relating to Tennant's biography of H.V. Evatt are collated in Series 4.

The internal order of material in files has been retained. In many instances the contents of files comprise a mix of correspondence, drafts, notes, research material and press cuttings. To facilitate discovery of material within files, file descriptions from the original guides have been utilised and enhanced to represent the contents as accurately as possible. Alternatively, where similar material appears in most files in a series, this fact is highlighted in the series description.

Researchers wishing to locate material from the original Tennant collections should refer to the Appendix to this list, 'Locations of material moved in 2007 rearrangement of Tennant collections'.

Container List:

Series	File/Item	Box
1	1-7	1
1	8-16	2
1	17-23	3
1	24-30	4
1	31-37	5
1	38-46	6
1	47-53	7
1	54-60	8
1	61-67	9
1	68-76	10
1	77-84	11
1	85-91	12
1	92-99	13
1	100-106	14
1	107-113	15
1	114-121	16
1	122-125	17
2	1-4	17
2	5-14	18
2	15-22	19
3	1-2	19
3	3-11	20
3	12-18	21
3	19-25	22
3	26-30	23
3	31-37	24
3	38-40	25
3	41-46	26
3	47-54	27
3	55-61	28
3	62-70	29
3	71-77	30
3	78-84	31
3	85	32
4	1-4	32
4	5-13	33
4	14-22	34
4	23-31	35
4	32-38	36
4	39-45	37
5	1-2	37
5	3-10	38
5	11-15	39
5	16-18	40
5	19-22	41
5	23-25 (24 MISSING)	42
5	26-30	Folio Box 1
5	31-32	42
5	33-35	43
5	36-39	Folio Box 2
5	40-44	43
5	45-48	44
6	1-4	44
6	5	45
7	1-6	45
8	1	45
8	2	Elephant folio
8	3	45
8	4	Folio Box 1

Related

Related Documentation:

1. Supplementary finding aid (Type: pdf, Size: 75.3 KB)

   Concordance following 2007 rearrangement of the Tennant manuscript collections

Conditions Governing Access:

Available for Reference.

Conditions Governing Use:

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Kylie Tennant, National Library of Australia, MS 10043, [series/file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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