Guide to the Papers of Michael Dransfield, 1966-1972

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Summary

Collection number:
MS 4741
Creator:
Dransfield, Michael
Extent:
1.02 metres and (2 ms boxes + 4 archives boxes)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Michael Dransfield, National Library of Australia, [class and file number]'.
Availability:
Available
Access conditions:
Available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

MS 4741 comprises drafts of poems, including a collection titled "Memoirs of a velvet urinal", letters from publishers, friends and his parents, and notebooks and diaries. One volume is titled "The cocklebiddy fisherman". Correspondents include Richard Hopkinson, Thomas Shapcott, Mirka Mora, Robert Adamson, Charles Buckmaster, Rolf Hennequel, Alexander Craig, John Tranter, Peter Kocan and Rodney Hall. The collection also includes 13 letters and a poem written by Dransfield to Paula Keogh between October and December 1972 (2 boxes).

MS Acc18.042 comprises drafts of poems, correspondence, journals, newspaper clippings and related papers. There is business correspondence regarding Dransfield's poetry, and personal correspondence including letters from Peter Kocan during his time hospital. The draft material includes poetry prepared for QUP after Dransfield's death (4 boxes).

Biographical Note:

Michael Dransfield was born in Camperdown, Sydney in September 1948, and educated at Sydney Grammar School. After some time studying at Sydney University and working as a journalist and at the Sydney Taxation Office, he took up writing poetry full-time.

Dransfield moved frequently during his late teens and early 20s. In Sydney he lived in Balmain, Paddington, Darlinghurst, Edgecliff, Pymble and Woolloomooloo. He travelled through Tasmania and other country areas, lived for a time in Casino, Cobargo, Candelo, Caloola, Canberra and Hall, and bought rural properties, including in Wapengo and in Woodford. He was interested in themes of country and rural idyll, and created his own mythological estate 'Courland Penders'.

His poems were published in journals such as The Sydneian, Poetry Australia, Wormwood Review, The Catholic Weekly, Meanjin, Transit, Free Poetry, Our Glass, The Great Auk, Flagstones and Uphill, as well as in The Australian, The Canberra Times and The Observer. During his lifetime, Dransfield's publications included Streets of the long voyage, Drug Poems, and The inspector of tides.

Dransfield died at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Sydney in April 1973. Memoirs of a Velvet Urinal, Voyage into Solitude, The Second Month of Spring, and Michael Dransfield: Collected Poems were published posthumously.

Bibliographic Reference(s)

  • Dobrez, Patricia. Michael Dransfield's lives : a sixties biography. Carlton, VIC : Melbourne University Press, 1999.
Collection Retrieval Advice:

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

Provenance:

Michael Dransfield offered his papers for sale to the National Library in October 1972. They were purchased and transferred in March 1973, with further papers received from Rodney Hall in the same month. Together they make up the bulk of Dransfield's manuscript collection.

Papers acquired from Livio Dobrez in May 1977 are contained in Files 2, 8 and 9, as noted in the file listings.

The material contained in File 10 was acquired from Thomas Shapcott in January 1980.

Paula Keogh donated the correspondence contained in File 11 in March 2006.

Further papers were donated by Elspeth Dransfield in 2018.

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Literature

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:
Access conditions may apply to this collection, please refer to the collection's catalogue record for further information (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn537836).
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 Michael Dransfield, National Library of Australia, [class and file number]'.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact:
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