Papers of Patrick White
MSS 022

Administrative / Biographical history

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_White

Patrick Victor Martindale White was born 28 May 1912 in London, England. Patrick White is the first and to date, only Australian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1973), was born into a wealthy Australian graziers family with strong ties to England, and received his school education partly in Australia, partly at Cheltenham College, England. He then lived a few years in Australia, working as a jackaroo and preparing for university. At King's College, Cambridge, he studied French and German languages and literatures (1932-1935) and spent considerable time in France and Germany (particularly Hannover, the fictional Heimat of Voss and of Himmelfarb in Riders in the Chariot). The experience of the Australian landscape on the one hand, and European literature and thought on the other were to become two major sources of influence on White's writing.

White had realised early in life that he was not cut out for a grazier's life but rather for that of an artist and writer. He wrote his first poems at Cheltenham (later privately printed in Sydney as Thirteen Poems), and soon started writing plays (some of them staged in Sydney and London), short stories and his first novel Happy Valley. After graduating from Cambridge he went to London where he moved in artist circles, making friends with painters, musicians and writers. While on a visit to the USA he wrote his second novel The Living and the Dead, 1941.

During what he used to call 'Hitler's war' White joined the RAF and worked as an intelligence officer in the Middle East. In Egypt, he met Manoly Lascaris, 'this small Greek of immense moral strength, who became the central mandala in my life's hitherto messy design' (Flaws in the Glass) and who was to become his life-long partner. Through Lascaris and his family White also discovered his love for Greece.

After some years in dreary post-war London White and Lascaris moved to Australia. They first settled on a farm at Castle Hill (at the outskirts of Sydney) and in 1964 to Centennial Park, Sydney. White explained his reasons for returning to Australia - and his ambivalent response to this country - in his famous essay 'The Prodigal Son', 1958. The national and international success of his novels The Aunt's Story, 1948 and The Tree of Man, 1955 mark the beginning of an extremely intense and productive writer's career. The many novels, short stories and plays White wrote until his death explore the nature of good and evil, love and hate, life and death, the material and the spiritual world, suffering and solitude. Among his many eccentric characters it is often the seemingly miserable 'outsider' figures who succeed in integrating life's ambivalences and in coming to terms with themselves, God and the universe.

After receiving the Nobel Prize, White became a celebrity in Australia, a role he did not cherish at all. With his Nobel Prize money he established the Patrick White Literary Award for Australian writers. Plagued with asthma and ill health all his life, White admitted to a 'bitter nature'. With his sometimes harsh criticism of people and issues he managed to make a number of enemies. In 1976 he returned his OA in protest against some of the government's policies. But his social commitment in speaking out on public matters and his generous support of various charitable causes were remarkable, and he had many friends and admirers.

White's self-portrait Flaws in the Glass, 1981 is an indispensable guide for biographical facts; for understanding his personality, beliefs and views of human nature; for reading his novels, and for background information on the real-life models of many of his fictional characters. For more biographical detail see David Marr's award-winning book Patrick White - A Life, 1991.

Awards:
Nobel Prize for Literature, 1973. Note: 'for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature'.
Australian of the Year, 1973
Helpmann Awards for Performing Arts in Australia, Best Play, 2007: nominated for The Season at Sarsaparilla : A Charade of Suburbia in Two Acts
Note: Nominated for the 2007 Sydney Theatre Company production
Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 1965: winner for 'The Burnt Ones'
Miles Franklin Literary Award, 1961: winner for Riders in the Chariot
W.H. Smith Literary Award (UK), 1959: winner for Voss
Miles Franklin Literary Award, 1957: winner for Voss
Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 1955: winner for The Tree of Man
Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 1939: winner for Happy Valley : A Novel

Patrick White died 30 September 1990 in Sydney, New South Wales.

References:
AustLit : the Resource for Australian Literature, retrieved 19 September 2007
Tim McCormick catalogue, 1984.

Acquisition Details

Scope and Content

This collection is part of a larger collection of material by, and relating to Patrick White, purchased in 1984. The manuscript material comprises unpublished correspondence from Patrick White, articles, reviews, newspaper clippings and portraits, including a black and white portrait of the writer by Brett Whiteley. Also included is the original Tim McCormick catalogue for the entire collection with brief descriptions of his works and references to him and his work in books, magazines and newspapers.

Patrick White's published works including his novels, poems, short stories and plays, and references to him and his work in books, magazines and newspapers have been catalogued separately and added to the Library's Special Collection.

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