Narelle Yeo and Tonya Lemoh

Arthur Keegan-Bole
 

Arthur wrote recently to the Society:
The latest news is that the set of arrangements and new music (including the arrangement of HHR's song) has been picked up by a record label. We are finessing the details and then will start a fundraising campaign later this year. We are hoping to release next year, supported by a tour across Hardy country.

We wish Arthur and all those involved in the Wessex Project the best with their work and look forward to following their progress.
 

3. HHR’s music at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig – an exciting idea takes shape

HHR Society member, Sebastian Fink recently attended a press conference at the Gewandhaus concert hall as part of his work in the communications department for the city of Leipzig.
 

Gewandhaus, Leipzig
 

The business of the conference was to launch the program for the season of Saalbekanntschaften, or ‘hall acquaintances’ at the Gewandhaus. Each year an artist with a significant link to the Gewandhaus is chosen and featured in the program.
Sebastian has since spoken to the press officer for the Gewandhaus about featuring HHR for the program as a famous writer who composed and lived in Leipzig and whose first novel, Maurice Guest so vividly depicted the world of music students in Leipzig. Now he and Stefan Welz are working to put together a proposal for the Gewandhaus with the help of musicians and scholars contacted by the HHR Society. They are– in Australia, Rachel Solomon, Clive Probyn and Tonya Lemoh, and in England, Arthur Keegan-Bole.  

We wish Sebastian and Stefan well and look forward to the proposal.
 
The Gewandhaus in Leipzig that HHR attended and where her novel Maurice Guest opens was unfortunately destroyed in the fire bombings of World War 2 between 1943 and 1944.
 

Gewandhaus in HHR’s time
 

And what better than to read again the opening to Maurice Guest to take us right to the old Gewandhaus:
One noon in 189-, a young man stood in front of the new Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and watched the neat, grass-laid square, until then white and silent in the sunshine, grow dark with many figures.
The public rehearsal of the weekly concert was just over, and, from the half light of the warm-coloured hall, which for more than two hours had held them secluded, some hundreds of people hastened, with renewed anticipation, towards sunlight and street sounds. There was a medley of tongues, for many nationalities were represented in the crowd that surged through the ground floor and out of the glass doors, and much noisy ado, for the majority was made up of young people, at an age that enjoys the sound of its own voice. In black, diverging lines they poured through the heavy swinging doors, which flapped ceaselessly to and fro, never quite closing, always opening afresh, and on descending the shallow steps, they told off into groups, where all talked at once, with lively gesticulation. A few faces had the strained look that indicates the conscientious listener; but most of these young musicians were under the influence of a stimulant more potent than wine, which manifested itself in a nervous garrulity and a nervous mirth.
 

 

 

4. Poet, Gwen Harwood inspired by HHR’s Maurice Guest
By Di Parsons

Di Parsons
 

It comes as no surprise that the Australian poet, Gwen Harwood, counted Maurice Guest as one of her favourite novels. Like HHR, Harwood was a serious musician before she turned to writing. Her knowledge of music informed the bones of her poetry with her mastery of rhythmic forms and her finely tuned ear.

Music meant the world to Gwen and, when it comes to Maurice Guest (that most musical of novels), her new biographer goes to it to describe Harwood’s idea for turning her family home (in Tasmania) into a boarding house for young musicians.  It was the seventies, Gwen was in her mid-fifties and casting about for ‘the means to change her life’. She needed money of her own, fresh energy and companions to assuage her feelings of isolation and loneliness. Her biographer describes Gwen’s plan as a ‘vision of a house full of earnest young souls practising their instruments, as in one of her favourite novels, Maurice Guest’.  (Anne-Marie Priest, My Tongue Is My Own – A Life of Gwen Harwood. 2022.  La Trobe University Press.) 
 

 

As things turned out Gwen soon found a better way of easing her financial constraints when she was given a grant by the Commonwealth Literature Fund.

Gwen Harwood’s boarding house for young musicians never eventuated but Maurice Guest remained an inspiration for the poet.  In the period leading up to Australia’s Bicentennial celebrations in 1988 Harwood worked with the composer Larry Sitsky to create a new Australian opera. She proposed one based on Maurice Guest – another fascinating idea which, alas, never saw the light of day.  
 

 

5. Henry Handel Richardson and Olga Roncoroni 1919-24: An Entanglement
By Dr Rachel Solomon

Dr Rachel Solomon
 

Rachel Solomon’s recent work on the relationship between Henry and her companion, Olga has just been published in JASAL (Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature). You can read the full article at: https://openjournals.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/JASAL/article/view/15237
 
The following is the abstract of Rachel’s article.
Olga Roncoroni’s essay in Henry Handel Richardson: Some Personal Impressions is the only first-hand account of how she and Henry Handel Richardson became ‘entangled.’ However, it does little to explain why Richardson sacrificed so much of her own life, including the writing of The Way Home between 1919-24, for her new and younger friend.
 

HHR and Olga Roncoroni at Lyme Regis
 

Gaps in Roncoroni’s memoir and the destruction of private papers have enabled speculation about Richardson’s motivations in assisting Roncoroni and the nature of Roncoroni’s character. This essay considers previously unexamined materials from the Medico-Psychological Clinic, the London School of Dalcroze Eurhythmics, and Queenswood School to paint a broader picture of Roncoroni and her activities during this period and the years immediately following. In addition to Richardson’s correspondence and Roncoroni’s memoir, this analysis exposes the extent of Roncoroni’s mental health issues, Richardson’s burden of care, and the circumstances that allowed Richardson to resume her writing life while continuing to support Roncoroni. Consequently, the prevailing characterisations of Richardson as self-serving and dominant and Roncoroni as entirely dependent on and preoccupied with Richardson is reconsidered. In this way, Dorothy Green’s largely overlooked or misconstrued understanding of the two women and their relationship is also reaffirmed and developed. The conclusions of this study pave the way for a re-evaluation of subsequent aspects of Richardson’s biography, including her relationships and disturbances to her writing patterns.
 

6. Henry Handel Richardson Fellowship – Short Story Writing
This fellowship has recently been offered for the fourth time in partnership with Varuna, the National Writers Centre in Katoomba and the former home of Australian writer, Eleanor Dark as part of the Varuna Residential Fellowships program. The award is offered every second year and includes two weeks’ residency at Varuna and a contribution to travel expenses. It is supported by the HHR Society to promote the life and legacy of HHR as a significant Australian author and to encourage excellence in Australian short story writing.
 

Varuna Wrtiers House
 

Previous winners are Peggy Frew in 2017, Imbi Neeme in 2019 and Laurie Steed in 2021. Since winning the award Peggy Frew has published her novel, Islands, Imbi Neeme has published her novel, The Spill which has recently also been translated and published in Germany. Laurie Steed’s collection of stories, Greater City Shadows has been short listed for the Dorothy Hewett award and his memoir (largely completed at Varuna) is to be published next year.

We look forward to hearing the name of this year’s winner!

 

 

7. 2022 Miles Franklin winner – Jennifer Down

Melbourne writer, Jennifer Down recently won the 2022 Miles Franklin award for her novel, Bodies of Light.
 

 

Jennifer’s name will be familiar to many HHR Society members. In 2014 she won the second Henry Handel Richardson Writing Competition and since then she’s had success after success. She has published her debut novel, Our Magic Hour, a collection of short stories, Pulse Points, and now Bodies of Light.
 

Jennifer at the 2014 prize giving for the HHR Competition
 

The Society sends warm congratulations to Jennifer.
 

8. A virtual walk around HHR’s Koroit

The second HHR walk - HHR in Koroit and Warrnambool - is now available on the app at:
 
Apple App Store:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/henry-handel-richardson-tours/id1504566412?mt=8
Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mytoursapp.android.app2041
 

Koroit Post Office
 

You can trace the steps HHR took when she lived there from 1878-1880, and hear relevant extracts from her memoir, Myself When Young, and from Ultima Thule, the third volume of The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. We’d love to have any feedback you may have before we do the next walks around Queenscliff and Maldon.
 

 

9. Update on Yves sketch of HHR

In the continuing saga of the recently discovered red crayon sketch/study of HHR, the HHR Society of Australia decided to offer the sketch to the National Portrait Gallery, which already holds the two portraits by Rupert Bunny, c. 1910. The artist was R. G. Eves, who also painted a formal three-quarter portrait, currently in the possession of the National Trust. Clive Probyn arranged for the sketch to be professionally photographed, and it is this copy that will find its way back to Lake View, the Richardson home in Chiltern.
 

 

Clive has presented the sketch to the National Portrait Gallery which is presently doing repair work and is in touch with the National Trust to establish the provenance of the original picture and its appropriate home.
 

 

86/80 Trenerry Crescent, Abbotsford 3067

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