John & Shirley McLaren Collection (2020) - VU Special Collections - How to access and use

Collection in Focus: John & Shirley McLaren Collection

The John and Shirley McLaren Collection contains rare and valuable books on Australian, New Zealand, and South Pacific fiction (novels, plays and poetry) and criticism. Also included are a number of works on colonial and post-colonial literature in the Asia-Pacific region. These items come from the personal collection of John McLaren.

Themes explored this month are Stories and Storytellers, Poems and Plays, Multiculturalism, Australian Studies, and Connections to Collections.

The books in the 'Connections to Collections' theme highlight the connections that exist between the individual collections which are within the VU Special Collection.

Stories and Storytellers

The salt of broken tears

Author: Michael Meehan
Publisher: Random House
Date: 1999

Days of change: a Malaysian novel

Author: Chuah Guat Eng
Publisher: Hologram
Date: 2010

Killing time in a warm place : a novel

Author: Jose Y. Dalisay Jr.
Publisher: Anvil
Date: 1996

Bridge of triangles

Author: John Muk Muk Burke
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Date: 1994

The Speaking land: myth and story in Aboriginal Australia

Author: Ronald M. Berndt, Catherine H. Berndt
Publisher: Penguin
Date: 1989

Coming out from under : contemporary Australian women writers

Author: Pam Gilbert
Publisher: Pandora
Date: 1988

Illywhacker

Author: Peter Carey
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Date: 1985

The Wrightson List

Author: Patricia and Peter Wrightson
Publisher: Random House Australia
Date: 1988

Shanghai dancing

Author: Brian Castro
Publisher: Giramondo
Date: 2003

Reaching Tin River

Author: Thea Astley
Publisher: Putnam
Date: 1990

Writing the nation: Patrick White and the indigene

Author: Cynthia vanden Driesen
Publisher: Rodopi
Date: 2009

Read a review of this book from the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.

Poor fellow my country

Author: Xavier Herbert
Publisher: Collins
Date: 1975

This Miles Franklin award winner (1975) has led to many conversations in Australia.

Read this 2009 paper: The racialised self, ecology and the sacred in Xavier Herbert's Poor fellow my country, in Sacred Australia
Listen to the conversation when this book was chosen by ABC RN as the 'book club' title.

Gularabulu : stories from the West Kimberley

Author: Paddy Roe
Publisher: Fremantle Arts Centre Press
Date: 1983

Read about what is happening in the West Kimberley region:

The Australian short story before Lawson

Author: Cecil Hadgraft
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 1986

I'm dying laughing : the humourist

Author: Christina Stead
Publisher: Penguin
Date: 1999

Link through to a description of the 'Steed Collection' archive at the National Library of Australia.

Earth

Author: Bruce Pascoe
Publisher: Magabala Books
Date: 2001

The author is best known for the 2014 publication 'Dark Emu' but has written over 20 titles. Link through information about the author and his impact:

Australian love stories

Author: Kerryn Goldsworthy (ed.)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 1996

Revolution by night, or, katjala wananu (the son after the father)

Author: James Bardon
Publisher: Local Consumption
Date: 1991

Bobbin up

Author: Dorothy Hewitt
Publisher: Virago
Date: 1985

There is a lot of information published about the author Dorothy Hewitt including:

The Eastern slope chronicle

Author: Ouyang Yu
Publisher: Brandl & Schlesinger
Date: 2002

Contemporary portraits and other stories

Author: Murray Bail
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Date: 1975

Poems and Plays

Selected poems

Author: Marianne Moore
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Date: 1969

Link through to the Moore Archive including "The Marianne Moore Digital Archive Notebooks Project makes digital reproductions and transcriptions of Marianne Moore’s notebooks readily accessible to scholarly, classroom, and non-academic readers for the first time."

Bon-bons and roses for Dolly; The Tatty Hollow story: two plays

Author: Dorothy Hewett
Publisher: Currency Press
Date: 1976

Sensuous horizons: the stories & the plays

Author: K.S. Maniam
Publisher: Skoob Books Pub
Date: 1994

The people's otherworld

Author: Les Murray
Publisher: Angus & Robertson
Date: 1983

The Penguin book of modern American verse

Editor: Geoffrey Moore
Publisher: Penguin
Date: 1954

Three Australian plays: One day of the year, Ned Kelly, The tower

Authors: Alan Seymour, Douglas Stewart & Hal Porter
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date: 1963

The Oxford book of Australian religious verse

Editor: Kevin Hart
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 1994

The light of Asia, and, The Indian song of songs (Gita-Govinda)

Author: Sir Edwin Arnold
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Date: 1949

The getting of wisdom: from the novel by Henry Handel Richardson

Author: Eleanor Witcombe
Publisher: Heinemann Educational Australia
Date: 1978

Watch 3 short clips from the movie production of this book on the NFSA website.

The chocolate frog, The old familiar juice: two plays

Author: Jim McNeil
Publisher: Currency Methuen Drama
Date: 1973

Australian one-act plays: book one

Editor: Eunice Hanger
Publisher: Rigby
Date: 1962

Link through to the Eunice Hanger Exhibition which "is the result of undergraduate research for the Research Methods course (ENGL3000) at The University of Queensland."