Guide to the Papers of Ray Mathew, 1870-2002 (bulk 1945-2001)

Summary

Collection number:

MS 8264

Creator:

Mathew, Ray, 1929-2002. and Sankey, Lorraine, Mrs.

Extent:

5.4 metres and (32 boxes + 1 large folio box)

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Ray Mathew, National Library of Australia, MS 8264, [series/file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

The collection includes: general and publishers' correspondence; unpublished literary magazines edited and containing contributions by Mathew; typescripts of plays, poems and articles; hand drawn programs and flyers; sketchbooks by Pixie O'Harris; artwork; cuttings books; photographs; and printed material including programs, music, pamphlets and books. Early correspondence describes the Australian literary and theatrical scene from the 1940s until the early 1960s. Major correspondents include William H. Peters, Pixie O'Harris, Russell Cope, Nancy Keesing, Eunice Hanger, Christopher Koch and Tony Hippisley. Other correspondents include Charles and Barbara Blackman, Alec Bolton, Richard Bonynge, Vincent Buckley, David Campbell, Nancy Cato, Clem Christesen, Manning Clark, Tom Dimes, Rosemary Dobson, Geoffrey Dutton, Miles Franklin, James Gidley, Mary Gilmore, Oriel Gray, Myfanwy Horne, Guy Howarth, Don Maynard, Ian Mudie, Hal Porter, Robin Pratt (daughter of Pixie O'Harris), David Rowbotham, Roland Robinson, Eric and Olga Schlunke, Tom Shapcott, Vivian Smith, Douglas Stewart and Patrick White.

Biographical Note:

'Ray Mathew awaits the critical attention he deserves. In retrospect, his was the most innovative mind ... His work also foreshadowed the more indigenous new forms that emerged in the 1960s.'

So declared Katharine Brisbane, co-founder of Currency Press, in 1995. Ray Mathew was predominantly a playwright, but also a poet, and writer of short stories, a novelist, an author of non-fiction, and an art and literary critic. Influenced by the writings of Rimbaud, Lorca, Verlaine, Browning and Christopher Brennan, his creative output includes three anthologies of poetry, poems for magazines such as The bulletin, a novel, The joys of possession, and radio plays and film scripts. He also wrote studies of Miles Franklin, whom he much admired and finally met in the 1950s at a poetry reading, and Charles Blackman, with whom he became friends in London in the 1960s. Mathew was also close to Barbara Blackman, Pixie O'Harris, Rosemary Dobson, Patrick White, Nancy Keesing and Donald Horne.

Born in Sydney in 1929, Mathew lived first in Leichhardt, and then moved with his family to Bondi at the age of 12. He attended Sydney Boys High School and later Sydney Teachers College. He taught in New South Wales country schools for three years, from 1949 to 1951. While in Derriwong (near Condoblin) - where his best-known play, A Spring Song, is set - he had his first poem accepted for publication in The bulletin, under the literary editorship of Douglas Stewart, who would become a lifelong mentor. His last teaching post was in Ironbark and it was here that he made the decision to become a writer. In his diary, he outlined the conditions necessary to this end: no wife or children, no nine-to-five job. Returning to Sydney, he gave adult education lectures at the University of Sydney, wrote reviews for The Sydney morning herald and worked at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). There he met fellow writer, Mena Abdullah, and together they wrote The time of the peacock, a collection of short stories.

In 1960, Mathew boarded a boat for London, via Naples, and never returned to Australia. He had won a British Arts Council bursary for drama - the first Commonwealth writer to do so. Mathew loathed his first year in London. He had little money and hated the cold. Furthermore his play, The Life of the Party, which was a finalist in the London Observer competition and which he was waiting to see produced, failed to attract critical acclaim. However, he eventually found his niche and over the next few years, undertook a variety of jobs: editorial work for The transatlantic review, typing newscasts for BBC television, and working as a barman in an actors' club. He also continued to write, producing his only novel, The joys of possession.

Much later in life, Mathew told Kate Jennings that the real reason he left Australia was the 'mess' in which he had found his personal, emotional and professional life at the time. In his play, A spring song, one of the characters, a country schoolteacher, offers further insight into Mathew's reasons for leaving:

'Peter: I couldn't [stay in the town]. It's too close for me, too small and too big ... I will go away. It turns out I need a city. You can be lonely and not lonely in the city. Here, you're on top of people, they're never away from you. And never close, I suppose. And I can't see things. I need to go away.'

In 1968, Mathew left London for New York, with the promise of a publishing project. Here he befriended the German-American engineer, Paul Kollsman, and his wife, Eva, and spent the rest of his days sharing their uptown apartment. With their connections in the art and film worlds, Mathew easily immersed himself in New York's literary life. He worked freelance and as an art writer until his death from cancer in 2002 at the age of 73.

Hailed a promising writer in the 1950s and, more specifically, a 'trailblazer' of Australian theatre, Mathew had no new plays or books published after 1967. He believed that his early critical acclaim came to stifle his creative impulse. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that Mathew played a significant role in the artistic life of Australia in the 1950s and 1960s.

Excerpt from An Australian for life : Ray Mathew, compiled by Sarah Gleeson-White, Canberra : National Library of Australia, 2005, pp. 1-2.

Provenance:

A first instalment of two cartons of papers was received by the Library in 1990 from Mathew's sister Lorraine Sankey, with whom they had been left by Mathew when he departed Australia in 1960. The Library purchased these papers in 1991 from Mathew who was at that time living in New York. After Mathew's death there in 2002, three cartons of papers were donated in 2002 and two cartons in two instalments in 2003, by Mrs Eva Kollsman (with whom Mathew was living at the time of his death). A final instalment of four cartons was donated to the Library in 2006 by Jeff Hyland, executor for both Mathew and Mrs Kollsman (who died in 2005).

Arrangement:

Since the first consignment was received in 1990, the collection has undergone three phases of arrangement. The initial instalment was arranged and described in 1991 and comprised nine boxes in seven series. In 2005, three years after Mathew's death, several instalments received between 2002-2004 were added to the original series arrangement. An additional two series were created to accommodate diaries not previously represented in the collection and a substantial amount of photographs. A final instalment received in 2006 was organised in 2007 and at that time all instalments were consolidated into a single series sequence.

The final 2007 series arrangement differs from the original arrangement of 1991 as follows: in general the original 1991 material in each series appears at the beginning of each series, with later instalments incorporated consecutively (ie 1991, followed by 2002-2004, followed by 2006); Series 1-6 have been retained; Series 7 has been renamed 'Printed material: press cuttings and programs', with books previously included in this series moved to Series 8, Printed material: books (two folders now in Box 24 are the only items from the 1991 arrangement previously in Series 7); another two series have been added - Series 9, Diaries and notebooks and Series 10, Photographs.

For identification of the folders relating to each instalment, see the Record of Instalments at the end of this guide. Researchers seeking to locate material listed in the first Guide to the Papers of Ray Mathew (1991) should refer firstly to the Record of Instalments table for 1991 material and secondly to the Container List for the location of specific folders from that instalment.

Container List:

Series	File	Box
1	1-7	1
1	8-14	2
1	15-21	3
1	22-28	4
1	29-35	5
1	36-39	6
2	1-4	6
2	5	7
3	1-7	7
3	8-15	8
3	16-22	9
3	23-31	10
3	32-39	11
3	40-47	12
3	48-52	13
3	53-58	14
3	59-63	15
4	1-7	16
5	1-3	16
5	4	17
5	Folio 5	Folio Box 1
6	1-5	17
6	Folio 6	Folio Box 1
6	7	17
6	8-9	18
7	1-6	18
7	7-11	19
7	12-18	20
7	19-26	21
7	27-35	22
7	36-39	23
8		24-29
9	1-5	30
9	6-10	31
10	1-4	32

Indexed terms

Names:

Sankey, Lorraine, Mrs.

Conditions Governing Access:

The collection is 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 Ray Mathew, National Library of Australia, MS 8264, [series/file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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