Unpublished poems of Shaw Neilson. Another copy. Autographed by James Devaney upon title page.

Component identifier:

Item 44

Content Summary:

Inserted are the following items. Autograph letter, 2pp, from Mary Gilmore, 15 November 1924, to J. Le Gay Brereton. "...I went to Melbourne this winter; only saw half the people I wished to see and should have seen. J. Shaw Neilson came specially from his brother's place near Mildura to see me. Such a simple, unaffected, thinking mind! He knew all sorts of political, historical and national facts that I had forgotten, or did not know at all. It seems so incongruous. Here am I the political body, and there is he, the poet, and the poet not only knows poetry and his poets, but what I ought to know as well." She then goes on to write at length about Paraguay.

Typescript of Mary Gilmore's poem, "The Spade", with annotation in autograph: "This I wrote on Shaw Neilson, but have forgotten in which of my books it is. Mary Gilmore, Kings Cross, 31.8.1962." The poem appears in Under the Wilgas.

Autograph letter from Mary Gilmore to James Devaney, 9 May 1937, with short reference to Shaw Neilson. "...Thank you for your congratulations to me. As there are only 40 Dames (King George V closed the Order at 40) there is some significance in the honour. Also one of the 40 has to die before another can be chosen. I was given the vacancy Clara Butt left. As I had in 1916, refused to allow my name to go in, I never expected to be asked again, that being the rule."

Names:

John Shaw Neilson

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