Guide to the Papers of Dymphna Cusack, 1937-1983

Request this via the Catalogue
 

Online content

Some materials from this collection are available online.
Show only online content

Online content

View online

Summary

Collection number:
MS 4621
Creator:
Dymphna Cusack
Extent:
10.08 metres and (23 MS Boxes + 26 Archive Boxes + 1 Medium folio box + 1 Map folio)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Dymphna Cusack, National Library of Australia, MS 4621, [box number and series and/or file number]'.
Availability:
Available
Access conditions:
Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:
Correspondence; drafts of novels, plays, poems, broadcasts, travel books, an autobiography and short stories; press cuttings, diaries, photographs, invitations, programmes, notes, posters, personal documents such as certificates and passports, cassette-drafts of Triple concerto, foreign periodicals and booklets, and many other printed items. Also includes three typescript drafts of Nurse No Longer Grief, draft of My Experience as a High School Teacher, MSS and galley proofs of Dymphna by Freehill and drafts of The Tide is Running Out.
Biographical Note:

Ellen Dymphna Cusack was born at Wyalong, New South Wales, in 1902, and educated at St Ursula's College, Armidale, and at Sydney University, where she obtained an honours degree in Arts and a Diploma of Education.

Her first novel Jungfrau was published in 1936 and since then her novels have included Pioneers on Parade (1939), Come in Spinner (1951), Say No to Death (1951), Heatwave in Berlin (1961), The Sun is Not Enough (1967). Her plays include Red Sky at Morning (1942), Call Up Your Ghosts (1945), Pacific Paradise (1955), Exit (1967). All her novels and most of her plays deal with Australians in contemporary Australia, or with Australians as the central characters. She is one of the most widely translated Australian authors, have been published in more than thirty countries and serialised in others. For her contribution to Australian literature, she was awarded the Elizabeth II Coronation medal. She refused the honour of an O.B.E. in 1975.

Dymphna Cusack died in September 1981.

For further information, see the joint autobiography Dymphna Cusack which Norman Freehill wrote with Cusack using her tape-recorded reminiscences (published by Thomas Nelson in 1975). Manuscripts of this autobiography are held at MS 4621 in Boxes 13 and 18, and tape-recorded reminiscences are held in the Oral History Collection at TRC 1657.

Relatives and associates of Dymphna Cusack: Norman Freehill, husband (died 1984); Beatrice, sister (deceased); Margie, sister (deceased); Nell, sister (deceased); Mollie, sister; Leo Cusack, brother (deceased); J.J. Cusack, uncle of Dymphna, owner of shop in Kingston, A.C.T. (despite efforts by family members and the Library to preserve them, his papers did not survive.); Peter Crowley, cousin; Peggy McGrath, Norman's daughter (died 1981); Jim McGrath, Peggy's husband and Norman's son-in-law; Cath Cusack, Dymphna's sister-in-law, widow of Dymphna's brother John Bede Cusack; Florence James, literary collaborator of Dymphna and companion of Norman Freehill.

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

Dymphna Cusack's papers were acquired in many consignments between 1959 and 1983. The last consignment was received after her death, from her stepson-in-law, Mr Jim McGrath.

Arrangement:

Consignments received up to 1972 were sorted into one collection and each item was numbered. An index to the correspondence in Series 1 was created on the basis of these item numbers.

Consignments received subsequently have not been fully sorted, item-numbered or indexed; a preliminary list to these additions is located after the main descriptive list. This preliminary list and amendments to the descriptive list, were made by Valerie Helson. The boxes are numbered from 1 to 30 throughout the entire collection, but because the first part of the collection was finitely item-numbered, and for other practical reasons, the additions could not be interfiled with the first part of the collection. Each addition, therefore, is File-numbered from 1 to the end of the addition, and is separately listed. Readers should be aware that material they are looking for could be in any part of the various lists.

Indexed terms

Names:
Dymphna Cusack

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:
Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1853783).
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 Dymphna Cusack, National Library of Australia, MS 4621, [box number and series and/or file number]'.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact:
Contact us