I have a collection of literary biographies, and I have an ongoing project to read them all, especially the ones about Australian authors listed here. You can find any recent additions not updated here in my Literary Biographies category.
(Titles are ordered alphabetically by the name of the subject of the biography, in bold. Links are to my reviews.)
Literary Biographies of Australian Authors
Thea Astley, Inventing her own weather (2015), by Karen Lamb
He (2021), by Murray Bail
Barbara Baynton, Between Two Worlds (1989), by Penne Hackforth-Jones
Martin Boyd, A Life(1988), by Brenda Niall
Beyond Words, a Year with Kenneth Cook (2019), by Jacqueline Kent
Aunts Up the Cross (1965), by Robin Dalton
Eleanor Dark, a Writer’s Life (1998) by Barbara Brooks with Judith Clark
The Shark Net (2000) by Robert Drewe
Miles Franklin (1967) by Marjorie Barnard
Stella Miles Franklin, A Biography (2008), by Jill Roe
Mary Gaunt, Independent Colonial Woman (2014), by Bronwen Hickman
May Gibbs, More than a Fairy Tale, an Artistic Life, by Robert Holden and Jane Brummit
Daddy, We Hardly Knew You (1989), by Germaine Greer
We of the Never-Never (1908), by Mrs Aeneas Gunn, audio-book read by Marie-Louise Walker
My Tongue Is My Own, A Life of Gwen Harwood (2022), by Ann-Marie Priest
Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life (2022) by Brigitta Olubas
Xavier Herbert (1998), by Frances De Groen
George Johnson (1986) by Garry Kinnane
Doing Life, a Biography of Elizabeth Jolley (2008), by Brian Dibble
Interestingly Enough, the life of Tom Keneally (2015), by Stephany Evans Steggall
Her Sunburnt Country, the Extraordinary Life of Dorothea Mackellar (2023), by Deborah Fitzgerald
Olga Masters: A Lot of Living (1991), by Julie Lewis
Leaping into Waterfalls, the Enigmatic Gillian Mears (2021), by Bernadette Brennan
Our Man Elsewhere, in search of Alan Moorehead (2016) by Thornton McCamish
My Place (1987), by Sally Morgan, read by Melodie Reynolds
Tripping with Jenny (2019), by Mudrooroo
Gerald Murnane (1993), by Imre Salusinszky
Murnane (Contemporary Australian Writers series, 2023) by Emmett Stinson
Life Class, the Education of a Biographer (2007) by Brenda Niall
Fishing in the Styx (1993), by Ruth Park, read by Anna Volska
The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard (2022), by Nathan Hobby
The Wild Oats of Han (1928) by Katharine Susannah Prichard
Henry Handel Richardson (2004) by Michael Ackland
Myself When Young (1948) by Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson, a study (1950), by Nettie Palmer
Life as Art, the Biographical Writing of Hazel Rowley (2021) …and news of the 2022 HR Fellowship
From Poet to Novelist, the Orphic Journey of John A Scott (2022) by Peter D Mathews
Christina Stead, a Biography (1993, revised 2007), by Hazel Rowley
Madeleine, A Life of Madeleine St John (2013), by Helen Trinca
Randolph Stow, (includes interviews)(1990), edited by Anthony J Hassall
Mick: A Life of Randolph Stow (2016) by Suzanne Falkiner
Kylie Tennant, a life (2006), by Jane Grant
The Missing Heir (1986), by Kylie Tennant
Mary Poppins She Wrote, the Life of P L Travers (1999), by Valerie Lawson
George Turner A Life, (1999) by Judith Raphael Buckrich
Only Happiness Here, in search of Elizabeth von Arnim (2020) by Gabrielle Carey
Patrick White, a Life (1991), by David Marr
The Generations of Men (1959) by Judith Wright
My Blood’s Country, in the Footsteps of Judith Wright (2010), by Fiona Capp
Other Literary Biographies
E.M. Forster (2009), (Brief Lives series), by Richard Canning
House of Exile, The Life and Times of Heinrich Mann & Nelly Kroeger-Mann (2008), by Evelyn Juers
All Sorts of Lives, Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything (2023), by Claire Harman
Katherine Mansfield The Storyteller (2010), by Kathleen Jones
Penguin and the Lane Brothers (2015), by Stuart Kells
Beatrix Potter (2006), by Linda Lear
Orwell’s Roses (2021), by Rebecca Solnit
Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa (2017), by Joseph Farrell
An Autobiography and Other Writings (1883), by Anthony Trollope
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