Guide to the Papers of Alan Mickle

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MS 1886

National Library of Australia View Catalogue Record

Collection Summary

Creator
Alan Durwood Mickle
Title
Papers of Alan Mickle
Date Range
1879-1966
Collection Number
MS 1886
Extent
2.4 metres (15 boxes + 1 folio)
Language of Materials
English
Repository
National Library of Australia

Introduction

Scope and Contents

The collection is divided into five main series: correspondence, including personal and business correspondence; literary manuscripts, including essays, novels, poems, and plays; journals; press cuttings; and miscellaneous material including music, drawings and photographs.

Conditions Governing Access

Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1259285).

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Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions.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 Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.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 Alan Mickle, National Library of Australia, MS 1886, [box number and series and/or file number]'.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The papers were donated to the Library by Alan D. Mickle in 1967.

Biographical Note

Alan Durwood Mickle was born in Melbourne in 1882 and educated at Melbourne Grammar School.

Mickle’s first book The great longing was published in 1910 and his last book, My lady life, appeared in 1960. He was a full-time writer for most of his adult life. He published eight collections of philosophical essays, six collections of poetry, two novels, a book for children, a book of sporting reminiscences and several volumes of reminiscences. Few of his works achieved commercial success, the exceptions being the children’s book The Trio from Rio (1942) and a travel book Appartement in Brussels (1939). He championed the writings of Eugene O’Neill and Six plays of Eugene O’Neill (1929) was the first critical study of the playwight in book form.

In his old age, Mickle took up painting and held a number of exhibitions. He died in Melbourne in May 1969.

Source: Southerly, vol. 30 (1970) p.69

Item Descriptions

Series 1. Correspondence, 1979-1966

Personal correspondence (Files 1-4) and business correspondence (Files 5-11a).

Personal correspondence from 1879 to 1912, consisting mainly of letters from Mickle to his parents, 1897-1906. (File 1) - Box 1

Personal correspondence from 1912-1919, dealing mainly with the career and life in the Army of Captain Kenneth Mickle, D.S.O., Mickle’s brother. (File 2) - Box 1

Personal letters to Mickle from his wife Ida, and correspondence with parliamentarians about the Commonwealth Literary Fund, 1922-1961 (File 3) - Box 1

Miscellaneous personal letters, n.d.. (File 4) - Box 1

Business correspondence in chronological order, dealing with publishers, critics and readers, 1885-1919 (File 5) - Box 1

Business correspondence, 1922-1929 (File 6) - Box 1

Business correspondence, 1930-1939 (File 7) - Box 1

Business correspondence, 1940-1942 (File 8) - Box 1

Business correspondence, 1943-1949 (File 9) - Box 2

Business correspondence, 1950-1959 (File 10) - Box 2

Business correspondence, 1960-1963 (File 11) - Box 2

Business correspondence, 1960-1966 (File 11a) - Box 2

Series 2. Literary manuscripts, 1907-1945

Literary manuscripts and typescripts, including poems, plays, essays, novels, and miscellaneous literary manuscripts. Many of the essays are located in more than one File, due to Mickle’s various attempts to produce books of collected essays for publication.

The Rovers, Me, The Bush, The Little Ship, Clara, Disappointed Hope, A Ballada of Deep Mourning, The Lament of the Lost Lover, and various nameless verses. (File 12) - Box 2

Printed copies of Rhythmy Rhymes, published in Melbourne, n.d. (File 13) - Box 3

Including 1. The Case of Timothy Tout. 2. The Treasure of Captain Carbuncle. 3. Rupert the Red. Plus a typescript copy of number 2 bound with other children’s poems.

Typescript copy of article in The Women’s Mirror, Sydney, 1934, reviewing Mickle’s book of nursery rhymes, Pemmican Pete and Other Verses. (File 13) - Box 3

Typescript copy of several poems bound together under the collective title, Wimin. (File 13) - Box 3

Three copies of a booklet of several poems bound-together under the title The Foreign Colony. (File 14) - Box 3

Two copies of The Poor Poet and the Beautiful Lady and other Verses. (File 14) - Box 3

The England I like to Remember: several poems published under this title. (File 14) - Box 3

Several poems grouped under the title We Kids and other verses for Children of All Ages. (File 14) - Box 3

Who Plays at Bowls: a one-act comedy in three scenes. (File 15) - Box 3

The Vamp: a one-act comedy. (File 15) - Box 3

The Woman She Was: a play in one act. (File 15) - Box 3

The Patriots: a play in three acts. (File 15) - Box 3

Collection of essays under the general title A War-time Diary (File 16) - Box 3

The essays in this collection first appeared in Mickle’s books Appartement in Brussels, Of Many Things, and Suzanne and I. Book 1: Brussels on the Eve, 1937-1938: Flags, The Captain, Dies Irae, Elsinore, Waterloo, Black Sunday. Book 2: Sydney, 1938-1941: The Cross, The Nostalgia of Spring, Advertising, Lugarno, England, The Boer War. Book 3: Melbourne in War-time, 1941-1945: I Decide to Start a Diary, When the Yanks Came, Western, Operations, The Leonski Affair, The War – Youth – And Some Small Boys, That Third Day, A Surgeon and Ned Kelly (2 copies).

Collection of essays under the general title Art and the Man in the Street (File 17) - Box 4

The essays are The Man in the Street, Rebels and Acceptors, Music and Painting, Sport and Art, Caricature, Fiction and Truth-Teller, The Drama, Churches and Architecture, The Artist and the Man of Action, The Trained-Mind Man, Literary Artists, A Sixth Sense, Art and the Game of Touring, Art and the Artists.

Collection of essays under the general title of A Writer’s Digest. A long introduction deals with Mickle’s life and writings (File 18) - Box 4

The essays are divided into five books: ook I: Thoughts and Memories: The Will to Express, Sport and Games, Achievement, The Third Player, Unity, Discontent, Fun, Golden Ages, Demi-gods, Caricature, The Dog and Cat, Cinema Stars, The Funny Story, The Rude Story, Childhood, A Business Partner, A Christmas Party, Victorians, A Book Begins, Shopping, Memories, Life, The Ideal Garden, The Fiddler, The Grey Gum, The Sun, Moon and Stars, The Sky. Book II: The Foreign Colony: The Foreign Colony, Colonists, A Foreign Colony Party, The Lady Tourist, The Bullfight. Book III: The Jervis Bay: Ginger, The ‘Tout’, Queenie, Tragedy. Book IV: The Vamp Women: Vamp Women, A Real Vamp Women. Book V: Extracts: The Dinkey-dies and The Dinkey-does, Flags, Habits, The Soldier, The Bush, Bushfires, A Walking-Stick, Prologue to The Pilgrimage of Peer.

Collection of essays under the general title of The Way Home and Other Autobiographical Chapters (File 19) - Box 4

The essays are divided into four books: Book I: The Way Home: My Beginnings, The Way Home, Adolescence, The Bush. Book II: The Land of Cockagne: The Land of Cockagne, A 1923 Diary. Book III: Travel: The Foreign Colony, The Wild Carpathians. Book IV: Prose Writing: The Poet Speaks, The Artist has the Last Word.

Collection of essays under the general title of The Land of Cockagne and Other Regions (File 20) - Box 4

The essays are The Land of Cockagne (2 copies), The Wild Carpathians (2 copies), A 1923 Diary, and The Foreign Colony.

Collections of essays under the general title Writing and Painting (File 21) - Box 4

The essays are Prose Writing, The Poet Speaks, and The Painter has the Last Word (incomplete).

Essays, not bound together, listed in the order in which they are in the file (File 22) - Box 4

A Visit to Relations, Entertainments, Elsinore, Fihi, Pets, On Putting on Weight, ‘Flu, Curiosity, The Posterity Book, On Pray, When the Crisis Gripped London, Lawrence, Virtues and Vices, The Sea, Black Sheep (by ‘Oxley’), Dogs.

Essays, not bound together, listed in the order in which they appear in the file (File 23) - Box 5

Thoughts, The Trained-Mind Man, Shaw, Shakespeare, and Falstaff (2 copies), Fiction and the Truth-Teller, article in The Hospital Magazine, Melbourne, May 1943: ‘Well-known Author Salutes Doctors and Staffs of our Public Hospitals’, Two Men, Attitudes, Crossword Puzzles, At The Theatre, The Sentimental Age, The Balearics, Tragedy, The Sea and Ships, My Brother, Minor Things and People, That Power, Spring.

Nine essays, or sections of essays, untitled, not bound together (File 24) - Box 5

Bulletin Memories, Poet’s Purloinings, Waterloo, extract from The Pilgrimage of Peer, Two Famous People, Macbeth and Hamlet, Mayday in Majorca, Ibsen, and Mr Bruce’s Ten Thousand.

Essays, not bound together, listed in the order in which they appear in the file (File 25) - Box 5

Two Gold Mines, Father and Son, Josephine, Three Mighty Russians (2 copies).

Collection of essays bound under the general title The Questing Mind (File 26) - Box 5

The essays are My Religion, My Dream, Says the Man or Woman, The Artist, A Sea Picture, The Robber, The Failure, Life as a Woman, I Think of Homer, The Church, The Chairs, The Sphinx, The Great War, The Underling, The Band, The Fiddler, The Imagination, The Swan, The Elephant, My View, If, The Dog, Training, The Unremembered and the Subconscious, Mathematics and Intuition, Human Nature, The Thinker, The Valley, Scent Music, The Gift of Sorrow, The Sea and the Mountains, The Reminiscent Mood, Moods, The Mountain, The Conrad Touch, London, My Thoughts, Games, At the Zoo, Ourselves, The Credit We Want, Desire, The Secret, The Known, The Onlooker, The North Wind, My Idea, The Introspective Man, Time and Distance, The Lion and Mice, The Clock, Evening, The Happy Ones, Flirtation, Beauty, Clouds and Sun, Convictions, Dies Irae, Memory, Experience, Scarabs, Hamlet, From a Diary, Summer is Coming, Two Impressions, Myself, The Modest Man, The Lady, Storm and Calm, The Lunatic, The Flower, The Way We Go, Man as an Artist, At the Pictures, Fate, The Humble, Youth and Age, The Couple, Here and There, The Blind, The Mists, and Remorse.

Collection of essays bound under the general title The Way Home and Other Autobiographical Chapters (File 27) - Box 5

The essays are divided into four books: Book I: The Way Home: My Beginnings, The Way Home, Adolescence, The Bush. Book II: The Land of Cockagne: The Land of Cockagne, an 1923 Diary. Book III: Travel: The Foreign Colony, The Wild Carpathians. Book IV: Writing and Painting: Prose Writing, The Poet Speaks, The Artist has the Last Word.

Collection of essays bound under the general title Those Yesterday (File 28) - Box 6

The essays are My Beginnings, The Late Eighties, Servants, School, Entertainments, Fashions and Prices, The Sea and Ships, Books and Songs, Some Minor Concerns, Holidays, A Bush Township, The Bush, The Boer War.

Collection of essays bound under the general title I Would go to London (continued) (File 29) - Box 6

The essays are Some Disillusionments, Norway to England, Waterloo, I Mourn a Book, and Ibsen.

Collection of essays bound the general title The Edge of Beyond. (File 30) - Box 6

The essays are divided into five books: Book I: Thoughts and Memories: The Will to express, Sports and Games, Achievement, The Third Player, Virtues and Vices, Vanity, Discontent, Fun, Golden Ages, Demi-gods, Caricature, The Dog and the Cat, Cinema Stars, The Funny Story, The Rude Story, Childhood, A Business Partner, A Christmas Party, Victorians, A Book Ends, Shopping, Memories, Life, The Ideal Garden, The Fiddler, The Grey Gum, The Sun, Moon and Stars, The Sea, The Sky. Book II: The Foreign Colony: The Foreign Colony, Colonists, A Foreign Colony Party, The Lady Tourist, The Bullfight, War. Book III: The Jervis Bay: Ginger, The ‘Tout’, Queenie, Tragedy. Book IV: Vamp Women: Vamp Women, A Real Vamp Women. Book V: Extracts ߪ: The Dinkey-Dies and the Dinkey-does, Flags, Habits, The Soldiers, The Bush, Bushfires, A Walking-Stick, Prologue to The Pilgrimage of Peer.

Two pages listing titles of Mickle’s essays, and the following essays, unbound, listed in the order in which they appear in the file (File 31) - Box 6

One’s Loneliness, The Son, Jones, The Fly and the Spider, Sir John, The Optimist and the Pessimist, Spring and Autumn, The Man whom Woman Loved, A Picture, Butterflies, Afternoon Tea, and Novar.

The Pilgrimage of George McFee. (File 32) - Box 6

A Faint Thin Line (File 33-36) - Box 6,7

The Queer Meetings of Willy Fitzbiffkin (File 37) - Box 7

A-Thynkynge, by Anonymous (with another draft) (File 38) - Box 7

The Execution of Newcome Bowles. (2 copies) (File 39) - Box 7

How it Strikes an Australian: a heathen’s journal, written in 1908 (including some material written in 1911). (File 40) - Box 7

Essays, not bound together, including Tragedy, Oddities, Chance and War, Gallio, Novar, Foreword by R.G. Casey to Mickle’s book Descent to Avernus (1948) (File 41) - Box 7

Essays, not bound together: A Bush Township, 1908, The Man whom the Lion Bit, Flu, On Putting on Weight, We Men, Black Sheep (File 42) - Box 8

Four Women (File 43) - Box 8

The Vanity Conscience (File 44) - Box 8

The Dark Tower, 1912 (File 45) - Box 8

The Toy Soldier (File 46) - Box 8

Essays, not bound together: Strange Interlude, One-Word Women, Eugene O’Neill: Mask-maker and Introspective (File 47) - Box 8

Essays, not bound together: The Great God Brown, Marco Millions (File 48) - Box 8

Eugene O’Neill: Mask-maker and Introspective (File 49) - Box 8

After the Ball: a Book of Sporting Memories (galley proofs) (File 50) - Box 8

Essays, not bound together: The Trio from Rio and other quaint people, A Sixth Sense, Departure, At a Girls’ School, Foreword by F.A. Bland to Descent to Avernus (File 51) - Box 8

Essays, not bound together: A Dream, Collections, Two Famous People, The Quality of Virtue, Some Social Failures, The Nostalgia of Spring, Fate (File 52) - Box 9

My Lady Life (File 53) - Box 9

Stephanie Day (File 54) - Box 9

A Writer’s Digest (File 55) - Box 9

Essays, not bound together: The Fell Sergeant, On a Picture of G.F. Watts, The Artist and Art (File 56) - Box 9

A Writer in Majorca, A Hike in Majorca (File 57) - Box 9

A Member Looks Back (File 58) - Box 9

The Exodus of Emmeline (File 59) - Box 9

Essays, bound together: The Will to Please, Fiction and the Truth-teller, Nature and the Dramatic Artist, Conrad and Kipling, Shakespeare and Shaw, Rupert Brooke, Three Great Plays, Emerson and Walt Whitman, D.H. Lawrence, Nietzsche, On Victor Hugo and Shakespeare (File 60) - Box 9

The Poor Poet, Summing Up (File 61) - Box 10

Said My Philosopher (File 62) - Box 10

The Edge of Beyond (File 63) - Box 10

The Foreign Colony (File 64) - Box 10

The Jervis Bay (File 65) - Box 10

The Questing Mind (File 66) - Box 10

A Faint Thin Line (File 67) - Box 10

Bits and Pieces (File 68) - Box 10

The Letters of Henrik Ibsen, Collections (File 69) - Box 10

Untitled typescripts (File 70-71) - Box 10

The Exodus of Emmeline (File 72) - Box 11

A Spanish Day and a Swedih Night, Hamlet and Macbeth (File 73) - Box 11

The Toy Soldier (File 74) - Box 11

My Lady Life (File 75) - Box 11

Marcia (File 76) - Box 11

The Sentimental Age (File 77) - Box 11

Bronco Dave of Dry Gulch (File 78) - Box 11

Bronco Dave of Dry Gulch and Other Poems (File 79) - Box 11

Rupert the Red and other Nonsense Verses (File 80) - Box 11

The Demon Rat and other verse (File 81) - Box 11

Miscellaneous verse (File 82) - Box 11

The Loony Cove (File 83) - Box 12

Noos and other Verses in Slang (File 84) - Box 12

The Treasure of Captain Carbuncle and other verse (File 85) - Box 12

Verse Vignettes of London from the Great City (File 86) - Box 12

The Great City (File 87) - Box 12

And to Romance and other verse (File 88) - Box 12

The Poor Poet and the Beautiful Lady, The Foreign Colony (File 89) - Box 12

Poetry manuscripts (File 90) - Box 12

Madame Stella, Said My Philosopher (1918), The Trio from Rio and Other Quaint People (File 91) - Box 12

The Patriots (File 92-95) - Box 12,13

Untitled manuscripts (File 96) - Box 13

Series 3. Journals, 1907-1926

Journal, 1907-1910 (File 97) - Box 13

Journal, 1908 (File 97a) - Box 13

Journal, 1918-1919 (File 98) - Box 13

Journal, 1919-1920 (File 99) - Box 14

Journal, 1920-1922 (File 100) - Box 14

Journal, 1924-1926 (File 101) - Box 14

Series 4. Press cuttings, 1915-1963

Press cuttings, 1934-1956 (File 102) - Box 14

Press cutting book of articles, essays, and poems by Mickle, reviews of his works, and some letters received by him, 1915-1926 (File 103) - Box 14

Press cuttings book of Mickle’s articles, essays, and poems, 1910-1960 (File 104) - folio (?)

Includes letters, or copies of letters, from Alfred Deakin, Edward Garnett, Rudyard Kipling, Eugene O’Neill, Cyril Scott and George Holland

Series 5. Miscellaneous papers, 1899-1963

Music scores, printed and manuscript, comprising songs written by Mickle and music composed by Ethel Dunford, n.d. (File 105) - folio (?)

Illustrations by James Cook and some verse by Mickle (File 106) - Box 14

Interview with Mickle; The Pip (1912); The Bungalow Lyre, (1912-1913) (File 107) - Box 14

Drawings by Mickle; (File 108) - Box 14

Miscellaneous typescripts and printed items (File 109) - Box 15

Miscellaneous printed and pictorial material (File 110) - Box 15

Miscellaneous documents, certificates, financial papers, cartoons, notes and receipts, 1899-1963 (File 111-12) - Box 15

Miscellaneous photographs and coloured slides of paintings (File 113) - Box 15

Manuscript poem by Walter Stoelting, Achilles before Patroclos’ body, inscribed to Mickle, 1947 (File 114) - Box 15

Publications, including Alan Mickle, Palma days, Alan Mickle, Peter Pan; Rudyard Kipling, The Fringes of Fleet Street (1916); Zest (Feb. 1932); Caravel (March 1936); The Tree Lover, (Spring 1939) (File 115) - Box 15

Photographs of paintings by Mickle (n.d.) (File 116) - folio (?)


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