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The bookfellow : the Australasian review and journal of the Australasian book trade

Call Number
Nf 820.5 A BOO
Created/Published
Sydney : Bookfellow, 1911-[1925?]
Issue
Vol. 7 No. 8 (15 May 1923)
Images
12
Notes
Some pages may appear skewed due to tight and damaged binding. Height differs throughout volume.
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Text

The Bookfellow  

Monthly.—Fourth Series, Vol. VII, No. 8. May 15, 1923.  

Yearff subscription Six Shillings posted to any AustraZealand address British and Foreign, 7s. 6d.  

Printed by Edgar Bragg and published by A. G. Stephens at 29 Jamieson Street, Sydney, Australia.  

Postal Address, Box 711. Sydney. Copy required at Fifteenth of Month.  

Registered at the General Post Office, Sydney, for transmission by post as newspaper.  

Australia Felix.  

Land for ever shimmering in God’s  

smile,  

The very rose of sunlit worlds and  

kind,  

Not John more glamour of loveliness  

divined  

Dreaming new Heavens for us on  

Patmos isle!  

I’ve sailed your halcyon seas and felt  

the wile  

Of waiting ships along your harbours  

lined;  

I’ve leant me to the bliss when winds  

unbind  

The treasures of the wattle trees  

while.  

Dear summer Land of happy, shining  

things,  

You changed for me the face of God  

above  

And healed my heart with beauty long  

ago!  

Beneath your brighter suns my spirit  

sings,  

And doubt and old despairs recovered,  

grow  

To faith and hope, and hope and faith  

to love.  

M. A. ROBERTSON.  

Under the Gum Tree.  

Sydney Telegraph’s “competition  

for the best Australian play,” ended  

December 31, was supposed to he  

partly an effort to provide Oscar  

Asche with scenario for another  

theatrical spectacle. Asche had used  

China for Chu Chin Chow and Egypt  

for Cairo—what next? Could Aus-  

tralia supply background and plot  

for Oscar to decorate?  

The supposition seems justified.  

210 plays were received. Judges were  

Asche; former English-literature Pro-  

fessor McCallum, of Sydney Univer-  

sity; and the editor of the Telegraph.  

Prizes were awarded April to Miss  

B. Hiscocks, Sydney, “The Spirit of  

Desire,” first, 100 guineas; L. Stone,  

Sydney, “The Lap of the Gods,” se-  

cond. 20 guineas; Miss M. Armstrong,  

Goulburn, N.S.W., “Fire,” and Mr.  

C. Davidson, Oakleigh, V., “Sor ell,”  

equally third, guineas each.  

The first-prize play has no dramatic  

importance, literary significance, or  

Australian reference. In Asche’s  

expert hands it should provide an ef-  

fective popular spectacle; for this  

purpose it is cleverly concocted. The  

scene is “India.” The nonsense-plot  

mixes an English officer and an Eng-  

lish officer’s lost daughter by Syrian  

wife—“a lady of high caste”—wher-  

ever she found “caste” in Syria—  

“educated and all that, you know.”  

There are also “Maharaja Sindhia  

Shah Rajputania,” who has accumu-  

lated these extraordinary titles in  

“Northern India”; an “Indo-Aryan  

doctor”; loads of lime-light scenery;  

and an apparatus of dancing and sing-  

ing girls, “sensuous half-naked fig-  

ures”—the whole shop-window. Ex-  

citement when Nazure the semi-  

Syrian heroine stabs the Maharaja  

Shah Oscar Sindhia Rajputania dead  

with her dagger! More excitement  

when the English officer undresses  

Nazure previous to disguising her!  

ROYALSTON: Hush! not word, Na-  

zure Quick! tear off those yards of  

silk (He commences to undo sash.)  

NAZURE (shyly) But the sahib—Na-  

zure will be undressed!  

'ROYALSTON Sh That’s nothing—  

you must be disguised before we leave the  

city, anyhow (Quickly he unwinds the  

silk drapings from Nazure’-s figure)  

Aha! that’s the stuff to make ’em  

puff. But—what is Australia doing  

in this galley of “Indian” bosh? All  

very well for Asche; all very well for  

Sydney Telegraph, which gets (say)  

100,000 words of copy for its 130  

guineas— at the rate of about guinea  

per 1000 —acclaims itself the liberal  

patron of “Australian drama”—and  

bargains for surrender of authors’  

copyright. But how is “the best Aus-  

tralian play” to be found in this  

“Indian” extravaganza?  

L. Stone’s second-prize “The Lap  

of the Gods” takes Greek mytho-  

logical figure to London, and shows  

English characters in an English  

background. How does that represent  

“Australian drama”? Of the third-  

prize plays, nothing is known. From  

an Australian point of view, the re-  

sult of the competition was an igno-  

minious fiasco.  

Melbourne’s collector of Federal  

Customs caused recent commotion by  

declining to admit bookseller’s con-  

signment of catchpenny translation  

from Boccaccio’s Decameron. The  

collector’s view was that the books  

were imported as lewdness, not as  

literature; and that, as he had the  

power, so he had the duty, to protect  

ignorant people from an attack on  

their manners or morals. In the cir-  

cumstances, it seems that the collector  

was right. The real point is, as The  

Bookfellow showed long ago, that  

censorship of literature should not be  

exercised, as it is legally exercised, by  

both the Minister of Customs and the  

Postmaster-General. Literature on  

its defence should be brought to trial  

before competent tribunal. Federal  

Ministers, chosen for definite pur-  

poses other than literary or moral  

judgment are an incompetent tribunal.  

The decorative illustrations in this  

number of The Bookfellow are by the  

beloved and lamented Claud Lovat  

Fraser: extracted from the charming  

book of Nursery Rhymes published  

by The Poetry Bookshop, Devonshire  

Street, London —price 2s. 6d.  

Cite

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Work identifier

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-820753999

APA citation

(1911). The bookfellow : the Australasian review and journal of the Australasian book trade Retrieved March 31, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-820753999

MLA citation

The bookfellow : the Australasian review and journal of the Australasian book trade Sydney: Bookfellow, 1911. Web. 31 March 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-820753999>

Harvard/Australian citation

1911, The bookfellow : the Australasian review and journal of the Australasian book trade Bookfellow, Sydney viewed 31 March 2025 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-820753999

Wikipedia citation

{{Citation
  |
  | title=The bookfellow : the Australasian review and journal of the Australasian book trade.
  | year=1911
  | section=v. ; 32 cm.
  | edition=Trade ed.
  | issue=Vol. 7 No. 8 (15 May 1923)
  | location=Sydney
  | publisher=Bookfellow
  | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-820753999
  | id=nla.obj-820753999
  | access-date=31 March 2025
  | via=Trove
}}

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