The Monash Henry Handel Richardson Project
The aim of the Monash Henry Handel Richardson Project is to produce full critical editions of Henry Handel Richardson's complete prose and music, with introductions, new and complete texts, apparatus, notes and publication history; it will comprise six novels, two volumes of music, three volumes of letters, one of short stories, and associated material.
The research team is led by Professor Clive Probyn and Associate Professor Bruce Steele and includes:
- Ms Dunya Lindsey (Research Assistant)
- Dr Meg Probyn
- Ms Tracey Caulfield (Research Assistant)
(Monash University, School of English, Communications and Performance Studies)
Progress to Date
- Maurice Guest
(1908): published in 1998 by University of Queensland Press and
the Australian Academy of the Humanities (871 pp.), edited by Clive
Probyn and Bruce Steele
- The Getting of Wisdom, edited by Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele, published by University of Queensland University Press and The Australian Academy for the Humanities in 2001 (400 pp.)
- Henry Handel Richardson: the Letters, edited by Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele, with Rachel Solomon and Patrick O'Neill, each published by Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press: Vol I 1874-1915 (658 pp.); Vol II (1917-33) (559 pp.); Vol III (1934-46) (800 pp.). The first two volumes were published in August 2000, the third in November 2000. This is the first time any Australian author's complete correspondence has been published. It has been shortlisted by CACS National Awards Committee as "An Outstanding Contribution to Australian Culture" (2000).
- Henry Handel Richardson: The Music, Parts I and II (2 vols), edited by Bruce Steele and Richard Divall, published by The Marshall Hall Trust, Melbourne, 1999 (149 pp): full performance edition of complete songs
- Songs by Henry Handel Richardson for Voice and Piano, edited by Bruce Steele and Richard Divall, published by Currency Press, Sydney, 2000 (63 pp.): a selection from the complete songs.
- Niels Lyhne (Sirens' Voices), HHR's first 'book', a translation of J. P. Jacobsen's Niels Lyhne (1880), edited by Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele and published by Australian Scholarly Publishing. Melbourne, 2003 (247 pp.).
- The Young Cosima (Australian Scholarly Publishing. Melbourne, 2004), xi + 378 pp..
- Meg Probyn has edited the complete Richardson family correspondence as Marriage Lines: the Richardson Family Letters 1854-1877 (Australian Scholarly Publishing. Melbourne, 2000), 422 pp..
- An edition of Richardson's great trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is in preparation.
Reviews
Prof. Dr Rudolf Bader, reviewing Maurice Guest in the journal Archiv (2001, vol. 238) remarks that "The explanatory notes collect the accumulated findings of the past decades on the autobiographical aspects of the novel, on references to contemporary persons or events and on references to German culture Together with the other scholarly appendices, this wealth of information is of the greatest importance for any future study dealing with Richardson's art", and concludes: "It may seem strange and unbalanced to give so much praise in a critical review. However, the fact is that we are here presented with a major editorial piece of work. In postcolonial literary studies, this is the editorial achievement of the twentieth century! University libraries are strongly urged to subscribe to the entire series". The two new volumes, too, have been very well received: Australian Book Review says that Probyn and Steele's edition of The Getting of Wisdom is "edited to the highest standard of scholarship for the Academy Editions of Australian Literature, and handsomely produced". According to The Australian, "The release of two classics in the meticulously edited AEAL series is doubly significant": the general reader "will read these books for pleasure" and the scholar will find them "invaluable". And The Canberra Times judges Probyn and Steele's edition to be "a thorough work of scholarship" which "should be used by anyone seriously interested in Richardson's work.... It is encouraging to see that such works of detailed, thorough scholarship are still possible in the current depressed academic climate". To buy, visit http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/ .
The review in Australian Literary Studies of Probyn and Steele's Henry Handel Richardson: The Letters (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2000) describes the publication as 'this superb, three volume edition of her correspondence' and notes that 'the information provided by the letters and editorial notes is truly impressive. The only recent work which approaches The Letters in the mass of new data it offers is Meg Probyn, ed.,Marriage Lines: The Richardson Family Letters 1854-1877(Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2000). This work, in some instances, is the silent companion to Probyn and Steele's notes, and testifies to the painstaking research which lies behind apparently pro forma footnote references in The Letters to persons who have not been traced. What Meg Probyn has traced, and outlines in 65 dense pages on the Richardson, Cheyne and Bailey families, is awesome'
To buy Probyn and Steele, Henry Handel Richardson: The Letters, visit Melbourne University Press
To buy Meg Probyn, Marriage Lines: The Richardson Family Letters 1854-1877 contact aspic@ozemail.com.au .