Guide to the Papers of Brenda Niall, 1911-1991

Summary

Collection number:

MS 7401, MS Acc06.113

Creator:

Brenda Niall

Extent:

2.83 metres and (14 boxes, 1 folder, 1 folio box)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Brenda Niall, National Library of Australia, [class number, box number and series and/or file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Biographical Note:

Brenda Niall

Brenda Niall was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1930. She gained her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Melbourne prior to moving to the Australian National University where she gained her MA. In 1964 she took up an appointment as a teaching fellow with the English Department at Monash University where she gained her PHD. She became a Senior Lecturer in 1975 and a Reader in 1994.

Dr Niall has held visiting fellowships at Michigan and Yale Universities. She was American Council of Learned Societies Visiting Research Fellow in 1975 and Visiting Scholar, Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, in 1983 and 1987.

Dr Niall retired from her position as Reader in English Literature at Monash University of Victoria in 1995. She was the recipient of the Nettie Palmer Award for non-fiction in the Victorian Premier's awards for Georgiana: a biography of Georgina McCrae, painter, diarist, pioneer. Her biography Martin Boyd: a life received the National Book Council (Banjo) Award in 1989.

Martin à Beckett Boyd

Martin à Beckett Boyd was born in Lucerne, Switzerland in 1893 of Anglo-Australian parents. He was brought to Australia at six months old. Boyd was a member of a distinguished artistic family. His father, Arthur Merric Boyd, and his mother, Emma Minnie à Beckett, were painters; his brother Merric was a potter and Penleigh a painter.

Boyd's original areas of interest were theology and architecture. He joined an English regiment at the start of World War One, and later the Royal Flying Corps, serving in France from 1915-18. His experiences there permanently influenced his attitude to war and the British ruling class and he became both anti-authoritarian and a pacifist. After a short time with his parents in Melbourne in 1921 he returned to England where he undertook a religious vocation in a Franciscan order in the Church of England. It was after this he started his career as a novelist.

Boyd's writing reflects a strong sense of tradition and aristocratic, anti-bourgeois beliefs, pacifism and cultural ties to both Europe and Australia. His first major work The Montforts(1928) received the Australian Literature Society's gold medal. Among his most striking literary achievement areLucinda Brayford (1946) and the Langton tetralogy: The cardboard crown (1952), A difficult young man (1955), Outbreak of love (1957) and When blackbirds sing (1962).

Boyd returned to Australian in 1948 and settled in his grandfather's house at Berwick. However ill health and dissatisfaction with post-war Australian life led him to return to England in 1951 where he remained until 1957, when he moved to Rome. He died there in June 1972.

Collection Retrieval Advice:

Please note: each consignment in this collection has a separate box number sequence (i.e. there may be multiple Box 1s). Please cite the relevant Class number as well as the Box number when requesting retrieval of material from the collection.

Provenance:

MS 7401 was donated to the Library in two instalments in October 1987 (Series 1) and April 1995 (Series 2 - 5) under the Taxation Incentive for the Arts Scheme. MS Acc06.113 was added to the collection in 2006.

Arrangement:

Niall kept her papers in good working order, and the Library has maintained this arrangement.

Indexed terms

Subjects:

Professions
Literature

Names:

Brenda Niall

Conditions Governing Access:

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2263568).

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 Brenda Niall, National Library of Australia, [class number, box number and series and/or file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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