Mary Lord

Mary Lord reviews 'Australian Melodrama' by Eric Irvin

June 1982, no. 41 • 01 June 1982

It seems that going to the theatre has always been a popular activity with Australians. Popular theatre during the period covered by this book (1834–1914) staged a remarkable variety of Australian plays: operettas, melodramas, burlesques, sensation plays, and extravaganzas. On Our Selection, the first play to be called ‘Australian through and through’, opened to an audience of more than a th ... (read more)

Mary Lord reviews 'Across the Sea Wall' by C.J. Koch

December 1982–January 1983, no. 47 • 01 December 1982

This is not a reissue of a novel almost twenty years old, nor is it quite a new novel: it is a heavily revised version of an early work by the author of the prize-winning novel Year of Living Dangerously. Across the Sea Wall was written before C.J. Koch was thirty. In a prefatory note to the new version he writes: ‘If such novels of youth are worth republishing, they are worth revising ... The c ... (read more)

Mary Lord reviews 'Scenes of Revolutionary Life' by Judah Waten

November 1982, no. 46 • 01 November 1982

At seventy-one Judah Waten is not just another old soldier who refuses to fade away. Nor is he a man who keeps writing books out of habit. He is a born storyteller who writes when he has something to tell us. And the more he writes, the more powerful and persuasive his fictions become. Scenes of Revolutionary Life is a brilliant achievement; the work of a man at the peak of his power. Subtle, ric ... (read more)

Christina Stead Supplement | Editorial by Mary Lord

July 1982, no. 42 • 01 July 1982

ABR is very proud to present its readers with this special supplement in honour of the eightieth birthday of one of Australia's most significant writers, Christina Stead, whose birthday falls on July 17. I am particularly grateful for John McLaren for asking me to edit this supplement and for thus allowing me to be associated with this gesture of respect and esteem towards one whom I regard as a m ... (read more)

Mary Lord reviews 'Archipelagoes' and 'Readings from Ecclesiastes' by Peter Goldsworthy and 'The Harlots Enter First' by Gerard Windsor

February–March 1983, no. 48 • 01 February 1983

It is comparatively rare for a new writer to bring out his first two collections in the one year, and even more rare that one should be a collection of verse and the other of short stories. Yet this is exactly what Peter Goldsworthy has done. His name will be unfamiliar to many, but those who regularly read literary magazines will have come across his stories and poems before and he will undoubted ... (read more)

Mary Lord reviews 'Loving Daughters' by Olga Masters

November 1984, no. 66 • 01 November 1984

With her first book, the short story collection The Home Girls, Olga Masters has made her ‘own’ a particularly neglected area of Australian life and a special way of seeing it. She also became an award winner in the 1983 NBC Awards for Australian Literature. Now, with her first novel, Loving Daughters she confirms the impression that a unique voice and an important one has joined the ranks of ... (read more)