Life Class
The Education of a Biographer
A biographer's memoir, in the tradition of Richard Holmes' Footsteps.
Awards
shortlisted for the 2007 Victorian Premier's Nettie Palmer Prize
Opinion
In her latest book, Life Class: The Education of a Biographer, Niall demonstrates that the subjects of her previous books -- Martin Boyd, Georgiana McCrae, the Boyd family and Judy Cassab respectively, have value beyond the particular. These lives illuminate what it has meant to be a human being at a certain nexus of political, historical and social circumstances.
-- Rachel Cunneen, Canberra Times, 3/3/07
Life Class is truthful and unadorned and modest, like its maker.
-- Mark Tredinnick, Bulletin with Newsweek, 27/3/07
About this Title
Brenda Niall is one of Australia's foremost biographers, the author of four award-winning winning studies including The Boyds: A Family Biography.
In Life Class: The Education of a Biographer she describes her own life-journey, from childhood in the Melbourne suburb of Kew; her convent education; her brilliantly promising university studies cut short by family tragedy. Her first job, as editor of B.A. Santamaria's Catholic Action journal Rural Life, brought her suddenly and unexpectedly close to the dramatic events of 1954 when ALP leader Dr Evatt attacked Santamaria's Movement and the Australian Labor Party split disastrously. Later, her interviews at Raheen, Kew, with 95-year-old Daniel Mannix, for Santamaria's biography of the Archbishop, were her introduction to life-writing. She resumed her academic career at ANU and at Monash University in the thriving intellectual climate of the 1960s.
Niall also retraces her literary footsteps to discuss the pleasures of biographical discovery and the pitfalls-technical, personal and moral-of entering other people's lives. Her biographical adventures include travels in England, Scotland and Italy, Austria and Hungary as well as scenes closer to home-in Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula, Sydney and the Shoalhaven region of NSW.
Niall's eventful, rich and creative life will fascinate her many confirmed fans and appeal to the growing number of readers interested in life writing. It is a valuable addition to the well-established tradition of eminent literary biographers writing about their craft.
Table of Contents
I. First Lessons
1. On Kew Hill
2. First Lessons
3. Interviewing the Archbishop
4. New Haven Winter
II. Border Crossings
5. Matching the Matriarchs: Ethel Turner and Mary Grant Bruce
6. Walking upon Ashes: In the footsteps of Martin Boyd
7. Searching for the Subject: Georgiana McCrae
8. Group Portrait: The Boyds
9. Face to Face: Judy Cassab
10. Time Capsule: Finding Fath Hackett
About the Author
One of Australia's best known writers, Brenda Niall is the author of four award-winning biographies. She has an AO (Order of Australia) for services to Australian literature, and an honorary D.Litt. from Monash as well as degrees from The University of Melbourne, the Australian National University and Monash University. As Reader in English at Monash University, she gave courses in Australian literature, American literature, biography and autobiography. She has held visiting fellowships at the University of Michigan, Yale University and the Australian National University; and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She now writes full-time, and is a frequent reviewer for the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Book Review.
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