Papers of Laurie Hergenhan
MSS 357

Collection Description

This collection comprises manuscript papers and related material produced or accumulated by Laurie Hergenhan, together with records of Australian literary studies.

Administrative / Biographical history

Laurence Thomas Hergenhan was born on the 16 March 1931, and grew up on the south coast of New South Wales. After completing high school at St. Bernard's College, Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, he attended the University of Sydney, receiving a BA then an MA during the 1950s. Hergenhan subsequently completed a PhD on George Meredith at Birkbeck College in London, returning to Australia in 1960 to take up a lectureship at the University of Tasmania.

At the University of Tasmania, Hergenhan taught and supervised postgraduate research in Victorian literature during the 1960s, but his research activities began to turn more to Australian literature. This was consolidated in 1963 when he became the founding editor of Australian literary studies, a position he would hold for almost forty years. In that time, Hergenhan published many articles and reviews on Australian literature and several books, including a collection of Marcus Clarke's journalism, A colonial city : high and low life (1972), a collection of essays on convict novels, Unnatural lives (1983) and No casual traveller (1995), a biography of the American visitor and promoter of Australian literature, C. Hartley Grattan. He was also general editor of the Penguin New Literary History of Australia (1988), first published as a special issue of Australian literary studies.

Hergenhan moved to the University of Queensland in 1971 and has since travelled widely as a visiting fellow at many international institutions. He was the founding director of the Australian Studies Centre and was appointed Chair of the English Department in 1992. He became an Emeritus Professor in 1995, continuing as editor of Australian Literary Studies until 2001.

Hergenhan has received the following awards:
ASAL (Association for the Study of Australian Literature) : A.A. Phillips Award, 1992, for work as an editor and critic and particularly for his services as editor of Australian literary studies
Order of Australia, Officer in the Order of Australia (AO), 1994, for services to Australian literary scholarship and education.

Hergenhan has written, edited and co-edited the following publications:
A colonial city, high and low life : selected journalism of Marcus Clarke (edited by L.T. Hergenhan, 1972)
Marcus Clarke : an annotated checklist, 1863-1972 (by Samuel Rowe Simmons; edited with additions by L.T. Hergenhan, 1975)
Portable Australian authors series (general editor)
Unnatural lives : studies in Australian fiction about the convicts, from James Tucker to Patrick White (1983)
Selective bibliography of Australian books in print : compiled for the Literature Board of the Australia Council (compilers: Laurie Hergenhan ... [et al.], [1983?])
The Australian short story : an anthology from the 1890s to the 1980s (edited and introduced by Laurie Hergenhan, 1985)
The Penguin new literary history of Australia (general editor: Laurie Hergenhan; Bruce Bennett ... [et al.], editors, 1988)
The Australian short story, a collection : 1890s to 1990s, 2nd edition (edited and introduced by Laurie Hergenhan, 1992)
For the term of his natural life (Marcus Clarke; introduced by Laurie Hergenhan, 1992)
The ALS guide to Australian writers : a bibliography 1963-1990 (edited by Martin Duwell and Laurie Hergenhan; associate editors : Marianne Ehrhardt and Carol Hetherington, 1992)
Unnatural lives : studies in Australian convict fiction (1993)
Changing places : Australian writers in Europe 1960s-1990s (edited by Laurie Hergenhan and Irmtraud Petersson, 1994)
No casual traveller : Hartley Grattan and Australia - US connections (1995)
Beyond the verandahs : a book of short stories (Ashgrove Writers; story editor : Laurie Hergenhan; book editor: Margaret Clancy, Bob Johnson; illustrations by Cheryll Johnson, 1997)
The Australian short story collection : 1890s-1990s (edited and introduced Laurie Hergenhan, 1997)
Letters (Xavier Herbert; edited by Frances de Groen and Laurie Hergenhan, 2002)
The Australian short story, new edition (edited and introduced by Laurie Hergenhan, 2002).

References:
Fryer Library, University of Queensland Mss UQFL203, May 2004
Who's who in Australia 2003, 39th edition, Crown Content, North Melbourne, Vic., 2003, p. 969
AustLit : The Resource for Australian Literature, March 2007.

Acquisition Details

Scope and Content

The collection comprises business correspondence, drafts, proofs, cuttings, audio visual material, photographs and computer disks relating to Hergenhan's publications. Also included are articles, reports, files, correspondence, photographs and computer disks relating to Hergenhan's editorial work with Australian literary studies, The Penguin new literary history of Australia and Portable Australian authors series and UQP Australian authors series.

Folders 318-524 comprises material relating to the journal Australian literary studies (ALS), Vol. 1, no. 1, June 1963-Vol. 18, no. 3, May 1998, inclusing office files, general correspondence, notebooks, accepted and rejected articles, readers comments, proofs and publicity, 1962-1998.

System of arrangement

The collection has been arranged in box then folder order.

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Reproduction Restrictions

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