Monica Elizabeth Jolley (1923-2007) was born in England but she migrated to Australia in 1959 with her husband Leonard Jolley, and it was in Australia that she began writing and became one of our best-loved authors. Her first book Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories (1976) was published in 1976 when she was 53, and she went on to write six collections of short stories, fifteen novels and three works of non-fiction.
In 2018 ANZ LitLovers will be hosting Elizabeth Jolley Week and this page gathers together all the reviews shared by readers who participate, eventually forming a valuable resource for anyone who wants to find out more about Elizabeth Jolley and her work.
Novels (a couple of titles have links to Wikipedia)
Palomino (1980)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
The Newspaper of Claremont Street (1981)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- see a Sensational Snippet at ANZ LitLovers
- see Bill’s review at The Australian Legend
- see Lisa’s review at ANZ LitLovers
- See Kim’s review at Reading Matters
Miss Peabody’s Inheritance (1983)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
Mr Scobie’s Riddle (1983)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- See Kim’s review at Reading Matters
Milk and Honey (1984)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
Foxybaby (1985)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
The Well (1986)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- See Kim’s review at Reading Matters
The Sugar Mother (1988)
- See Lisa’s ANZ LitLovers review
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- See Karen’s review at BookerTalk
My Father’s Moon (1989)
- See Sue’s review at Whispering Gums
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- See Meg’s guest review at ANZ LitLovers
Cabin Fever (1990)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss (thanks to Meg for the link, which I used to locate all the other opening lines)
- See Meg’s guest review at ANZ LitLovers
The Georges’ Wife (1993)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- See Meg’s guest review at ANZ LitLovers
- see Bill’s review at The Australian Legend
The Orchard Thieves (1995)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- see Sue’s review at Whispering Gums
Lovesong (1997)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- See Guy’s review at His Futile Preoccupations
- see Bill’s review at The Australian Legend.
An Accommodating Spouse (1999)
- (opening lines not available at Middlemiss)
An Innocent Gentleman (2001)
- read the opening lines at Middlemiss
- See Lisa’s ANZ LitLovers review
- See Sue’s review at Whispering Gums
Short Stories
Five Acre Virgin and Other Stories (1976)
The Well-Bred Thief (1977)
The Travelling Entertainer and Other Stories (1979)
- see the table of contents at Middlemiss
Woman in a Lampshade (1983)
- see the table of contents at Middlemiss
- See Lisa’s ANZ LitLovers review of the Penguin Special edition of ‘Adam’s Bride’ from this collection and a Sensational Snippet
Off the Air: Nine Plays for Radio (1995)
Fellow Passengers: Collected Stories of Elizabeth Jolley (1997)
In The Oxford Books of Australian Short Stories (Ed. Michael Wilding) 1994
In the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (Ed. Nicholas Jose) 2009
Non-fiction
Central Mischief: Elizabeth Jolley on Writing, Her Past and Herself (1992)
- see a Table of Contents at Middlemiss
Diary of a Weekend Farmer (1993)
Learning to Dance: Elizabeth Jolley: Her Life and Work (2006)
Biographies of Elizabeth Jolley
Doing Life, a Biography of Elizabth Jolley by Leonard Dibble
-
- See Lisa’s ANZ LitLovers Review
- See Bill’s thoughts about the Jolley chapter in Tony Hughes-d’Aeth’s account of Western Australian Wheatbelt Writers, Like Nothing on this Earth (2017), at The Australian Legend
Other
See Sue’s Monday Musings at Whispering Gums
*The image of Elizabeth Jolley is from Wikipedia where it appears to be available for Fair Use.
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