Vance and Nettie Palmer

Vance and Nettie Palmer were two of the most prominent exponents of Australian literature from the 1920s to 1950s. Edward Vivian Palmer (born August 28, 1885 in Bundaberg , Queensland , † 1959), was a novelist , playwright and literary critic . Janet Gertrude Palmer (* 1885 in Bendigo , Victoria as Higgins; † 1964) was a poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic. They promoted Australian literature (Nettie especially that of women) more than anyone of their generation.

Vance missed the chance to go to university and was able to experience “real life” on a sheep farm in western Queensland . From a young age he wanted to become a writer. In 1905 and 1910 he went to London , what was then the center of Australia's cultural universe, to learn his trade and improve his prospects. He failed to penetrate the inner circle of literary life in London, but his association with Alfred Richard Orage and other representatives of the socialist guild had an enormous influence on his political views.

Nettie was born the niece of Henry Bournes Higgins , a leading exponent of radical Victorian politics and later Federal Minister and Justice of the High Court of Australia . A brilliant scholar and linguist , she graduated from the University of Melbourne and studied literature in Germany and France . Her brother Esmonde Higgins was a well-known Australian communist , but her own politics, influenced by her uncle, have always been liberal and tolerant .

Vance and Nettie met in 1908 and were married in London in 1914. When the First World War broke out , they returned to Australia, where their daughters Aileen and Helen were born in 1915 and 1917. In 1918, Vance entered the Australian Army, but the war ended before his service began. Vance, Nettie and Esmonde led a joint campaign against the Hughes government's attempt to introduce conscription in Australia .

Both Vance and Nettie had started publishing poetry , short stories , reviews, and journalistic contributions before the war . When they lived in the fishing village of Caloundra in Queensland in the 1920s to save money, they devoted themselves entirely to literature. Vance published his first novel in 1920 and the successful drama The Black Horse in 1924 . His best novels from this period were The Man Hamilton (1928), The Passage (1930) and The Swayne Family (1934).

Nettie did not write any fictional works, also in order not to compete with her husband. In 1924 she published Modern Australian Fiction , the most important academic study of Australian literature at the time. In 1931 she wrote an important biography of her uncle Henry Bournes Higgins. She also became the center of a network with other writers, mostly women.

In 1935 the Palmers traveled to Europe. The Spanish Civil War broke out while on vacation near Barcelona . Aileen and Helen had joined the communist party as students and Aileen stayed behind to volunteer with the International Brigades in Spain while the rest of the family returned to Australia. Upon her return to Melbourne, Nettie devoted herself to supporting the Spanish Republic .

During World War II , Vance and Nettie did everything they can to support the war effort, despite having health problems. Vance has published a number of historical and biographical works: National Portraits (1941), AG Stephens: His Life and Work (1941), Frank Wilmot (1942) and Louis Esson and the Australian Theater (1948). Nettie published The Memoirs of Alice Henry (1944) and Fourteen Years: Extracts from a Private Journal (1948), perhaps her best work.

Vance wanted to write the "Great Australian Novel" and in the post-war years published a trilogy - Golconda (1948), Seedtime (1957) and The Big Fellow (1959) - that focused on the life of Queensland. Politician Ted Theodore was based. The trilogy received poor reviews and today Vance's novels are out of print, but many of his short stories are still read and re-edited.

In 1954 Vance published The Legend of the Nineties , a critical study of the development of the nationalist tradition in Australian literature, which is generally associated with the weekly magazine The Bulletin . This is perhaps his most famous work. Nettie wrote Henry Handel Richardson: A Study that contributed greatly to the reputation of Henry Handel Richardson (pen name of Henrietta Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson) and her monumental trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney . It seems a sad irony that this was the great Australian novel Vance couldn't write.

Vance and Nettie's final years of life were overshadowed by poor health and concern for their daughter Aileen, who suffered a nervous breakdown and became an alcoholic in 1948 . They suffered great fear when Vance was attacked as a communist comrade (which he was partially) during the McCarthy era in the 1950s. This may have hastened his death from heart failure in 1959. Nettie died in 1964 to the great sympathy of Australian writers and readers.