Guide to the Papers of Harold Stewart, 1933-1995

Summary

Collection number:

MS 8973

Creator:

Stewart, Harold, 1916-1995

Extent:

(32 boxes + 1 item + 2 audiovisual carriers)

Language:

English and English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Harold Stewart, National Library of Australia, MS 8973, [series and/or folder number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Part available for research; part not available for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

MS 8973 comprises personal, publishers' and general correspondence; financial papers; travel diaries; notebooks relating to Harold Stewart's works and his interest in Asian history and culture; typescripts and other papers relating to his published works A chime of windbells, Tannisho, and By the old walls of Kyoto; manuscripts and typescripts of his unpublished works Over the vermilion bridge, New phoenix wings, and Autumn landscape roll; essays and other papers; and an aerogramme from Harold Stewart to T. Graham Fisher, 22 May 1983. Major correspondents include the Australia Council, Carmen Blacker, Tess van Sommers d'Alpuget, Dorothy Green, Michael Heyward (author of The Ern Malley affair), Henry Horwege, Stewart's patron Heinz Karrer, Peter Kelly, the potter Milton Moon, Ruth Niland (Park), Peter Talbot Wilcox, and John Weatherhill Inc.

Biographical / Historical:

Harold Frederick Stewart was a poet and Oriental scholar. He was bornon 14 December 1916 and died on 7 Aug. 1995. Stewart grew up Drummoyne, NSW andwas educated at Fort Street Boys High School and the State Conservatorium ofMusic. In 1936 he attended the University of Sydney but did not complete adegree.

In 1941 he was conscripted and sent to the Directorate of Research andCivil Affairs at the Victoria Barracks in Melbourne. In 1943 Stewart and JamesMcAuley perpetrated the Ern Malley hoax against Max Harris, the editor of themodernist literary magazine Angry Penguins.

After the war Stewart lived in Melbourne and worked at the Norman Robbbookstore. In 1950 he organised a reading group in Asian philosophy, and duringthe 1950s ran courses for the Victorian Council of Adult Education onliterature, music and Asian art and worked as a broadcaster with the ABC.

While Stewart's early writings were in the European classic tradition,his later works reflected his interest in Chinese and Japanese history andculture. His first book of poems, Phoenix wings was published by Angus in 1948. In 1956 a sequence of poems entitled Orpheus and other poems was also publishedby Angus Robertson. This work had previously won the Sydney Morning Herald 1949 versecompetition.

In 1959-60 Stewart was awarded the Saionji Memorial Scholarship tostudy Japanese culture in Japan for one year. He visited Japan in 1961 and 1963and in 1966 moved to Kyoto, never returning to Australia. In Kyoto he studiedunder Bando Shojun, a Shin Buddhist priest and Professor of Buddhism at OtaniDaigaku (Shin Buddhist University in Kyoto). He continued to write, supportedlargely by Australia Council literature grants and his patron, Heinz Karrer.

His later publications were the haiku translations A net of fireflies (Rutland, Vt : C. E.Tuttle, 1960) and A chime of windbells (Rutland, Vt : C.E. Tuttle, 1969), the limited edition of The exiled immortal : a song-cycle (Canberra : Brindabella Press, 1980), Tannisho (Eastern Buddhist Society, 1980)a translation of the 13th century text written by Yuien-bo (with Bando Shojun),and By the old walls of Kyoto : a year's cycle oflandscape poems with prose commentaries (New York: Weatherhill, 1981),an account in verse of twelve of Kyoto's historic sights.

In 1987 Stewart was awarded the Fellowship of Australian Writers'Christopher Brennan Award.

In the year before his death, Stewart completed his largest work "Autumn landscape roll", a 5000 line poem ona voyage to the afterlife by the Tang dynasty poet Wu Tao Tzu.

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

The papers were bequeathed to the Library by Harold Stewart and were acquired in October 1995. The executor of the estate, Bishop Peter Hillebrand, wrote to many of Stewart's correspondents suggesting that they donate letters from Stewart to the Library. Papers acquired in this manner, while not strictlypart of the Stewart Papers, form series 16.

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-vn2625610).

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 Harold Stewart, National Library of Australia, MS 8973, [series and/or folder number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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