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Keith Dunstan

Collins by Judith Raphael Buckrich (with Keith Dunstan, Rohan Storey and Marc Strizic) & Go! Melbourne edited by Seamus O’Hanlon and Tanja Luckins

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March 2006, no. 279
Neil Clerehan reviews ‘Collins: The story of Australia’s premier street’ by Judith Raphael Buckrich and ‘Go! Melbourne: Melbourne in the sixties’ edited by Seamus O’Hanlon and Tanja Luckins

Two new books with Melbourne as their subject couldn’t be more disparate in size, form, content and accuracy. Collins: The Story of Australia’s Premier Street is a big, well-designed book. It has a mysterious provenance and more than a smattering of inaccuracies: but it has pictures. These are mostly from the State Library of Victoria, and even those dating from the early years of outside photography provide clear details of the buildings and people of the time. They will enchant even those who dare think that our premier street is not so very different from the main streets of Manchester or Madison.

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Batman in the Bulletin: The Melbourne I remember by Keith Dunstan

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June–July 2005, no. 272
John Rickard reviews ‘Batman in the Bulletin: The Melbourne I remember’ by Keith Dunstan

‘There is no Australian city other than Melbourne which could have produced Keith Dunstan,’ writes Barry Humphries in his foreword to this collection. Indeed, Dunstan, journalist and writer, has long been a Melbourne institution, particularly remembered for his daily column in the Sun News-Pictorial, ‘A Place in the Sun’. While working as a journalist, he was also busy as a writer of popular history: among his many works is that splendid trilogy, Wowsers (1968), Knockers (1972) and Ratbags (1979), the juxtaposition of those titles telling us so much about the character of Australian culture.

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