‘A world-proof life’: Eleanor Dark, a writer in her times, 1901- 1985 ‘A world-proof life’: Eleanor Dark, a writer in her times, 1901- 1985 By Marivic Wyndham UTSePress, Sydney Licence Information This work is licensed under the Creative Commons ‘By Attribution,’ ‘Non Commercial,’ ‘No Derivative Works.’ See http://creativecommons.org.au/licences for more details. Copyright Information This work is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of research or study, reproduction in any form by any means for public or commercial use is prohibited without the written permission of the copyright owner. Contributors retain copyright ownership of their individual works and assert their moral right to be identified as authors. © Marivic Wyndham First Published in 2007 Cover photo Eleanor and Eric Dark at their Blue Moutains cave retreat, c. 1940s. Courtesy of Joris Ivens National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Wyndham, Marivic. 'A world-proof life': Eleanor Dark, a writer in her times, 1901-1985. Bibliography. ISBN 9780980284027 (online). 1. Dark, Eleanor, 1901-1985. 2. Women authors - Australia - Biography. I. Title. A823.2 Published by UTSePress, Sydney 2007 University Library University of Technology, Sydney PO Box 123 BROADWAY NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA Contents Contents........................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ...........................................................................1 Prologue.............................................................................................3 Chapter One.......................................................................................5 Tailoring her own suit of beliefs........................................................5 Chapter Two. ...................................................................................25 ‘Toys of her childhood,’ 1901-1930................................................25 Chapter Three. .................................................................................84 From toy to icon: the beginning of the public years, the early 1930s ...............................................................................................84 Chapter Four..................................................................................133 ‘Feeling a bit Leftish’: the post-Depression years.........................133 Chapter Five. .................................................................................174 Chapter Six. ...................................................................................210 War within, war without, 1940-1945 ............................................210 Chapter Seven................................................................................254 ‘Filled with forebodings’: the immediate post-war years, 1945-1949......................................................................................254 Chapter Eight.................................................................................302 The apotheosis of ‘a world-proof life’: the Montville Years, the ‘fifties ............................................................................................302 Epilogue.........................................................................................349 Select Bibliography .......................................................................354 Acknowledgements This book began its long life as an Honours thesis in 1987, later extended into a doctoral thesis. The material – and the idea and the author – then went into a period of hibernation lasting what now seems like an eternity. Throughout its many quiet and active seasons, the germ of the book was nurtured and sustained by the faith and support of close family, friends and colleagues. To them I owe my greatest debt of gratitude. To Nicholas Brown who led me to Eleanor in the first place – gently, unhurriedly, lovingly – and remained committed to my work ever since. To Peter Read who lent every practical and intellectual support a colleague could expect – and more. To Tim Goodwin whose kind offer to read the manuscript of this book – embraced instantly – yielded pages upon pages of acutely insightful comments on every chapter and every aspect of this study. My debt extends to many others who throughout the difficult months of turning the manuscript into a book gave me of their time and energies to read chapters, talk through difficult passages, offer practical and emotional support. Thank you especially to Ksana Gamaly, Douglas Craig, Chris Samuel, all of whom read, engaged with and commented on chapter after chapter after chapter. Much later in this journey, a new source of support – Paul Allatson, colleague and friend – to whom this book owes its last burst of energy. I also received valuable support and technical assistance from Michael Prince, for which I am grateful, as I am to the collective at UTSePress for their faith in this project and work to see it through to publication. The Dark family, particularly Eric and Michael Dark, opened many windows on Eleanor Dark. I value their generosity and trust. I benefited from many discussions and conversations with Jill and Rod Dark, John and Ann Dark, Jann Dark and Helen O’Reilly. Others also kindly shared their personal knowledge of Eleanor, including Manning Clark, Karl Shapiro, ‘Mollie’ White, Len Fox and Florence James. A trip to Montville, Queensland, allowed me to meet many of the delightful characters of Lantana Lane, including Madge and Arty Glover, Alan and June Brown, Dulcie Brown, all of whom were the Darks’ fellow farmers in the 1950s. I want also to thank the staffs of the research centres listed in the Bibliography, in particular those in the manuscript rooms of the Mitchell Library and National Library of Australia, and John Low of the Blue Mountains City Library. An Eleanor Dark Foundation fellowship gave me the chance to live and write in Eleanor Dark’s gracious family residence, and to taste something of her ‘world-proof life’ from within. It was a privileged experience. A diligent search has been undertaken to determine the copyright owners of the images and photographs used in this book. Please contact the author at [email protected] if you have further information on any of the images used in this book. I have been blessed with wonderful inspiring teachers. I want here to thank in particular Barry Smith and Axel Clark, my two PhD supervisors, as well as Les Menezes, Fred Langman and Elizabeth Waters: for many and wonderful journeys into the worlds of literature and history, main themes of this work. My parents - Cold War exiles - left much behind when they had suddenly to move to a new land. But with them they took their hunger for knowledge and pursuit of truth, rich possessions which carried them through over four decades of displacement, grief and loss. I salute them and thank them for bequeathing me such precious gifts. My daughter Jessica has been the rock. Her practical and intellectual support, good sense and good humour have been boundless. To her I dedicate this book with equally boundless gratitude and love. 2 Prologue It was in a late Australian spring day in 1986 that I first met Eleanor Dark. She had been dead for just over a year – a long quiet death had concluded a long quiet life, lived in the splendour of ‘Varuna,’ her magnificent home and gardens in the Blue Mountains. Her husband Eric – fourteen years her senior – had survived her, stubbornly clinging to the last threads of a hard-lived life, and to the memories of their sixty plus years as lovers, fellow intellectuals and humanists. Since Eleanor’s death and for the duration Eric was day-camping on doctor’s orders on the ground-floor of ‘Varuna.’ For his bedsite, he had chosen a little slice of the family’s elegant dining room. A tiny bed running parallel to the dining table hugged the long window overlooking the front entrance and the lush mature gardens he and she had brought to life and splendour over the years. One of many fruitful lifetime collaborations, the view from Eric’s makeshift bedroom was vivid poignant reminder of his lost partner and partnership. I met Eric Dark only months before he died in 1987, his frail withered body no match for the dynamic imposing presence of the man himself. Or for the sharp translucent quality of the mind reflected in the poetic language and imagery with which he painted for me the lover and companion he now mourned. Eric had been exhausting – ‘divinely in earnest’- in his endless physical, professional and political enthusiasms: no doubt about it. But for the woman who had shared – and endured – those enthusiasms, as I was later to discover for myself, he had been above all her life’s anchor and soul companion. Eric was the closest I would come to meeting the flesh-and-blood Eleanor. Defying his doctor’s orders, Eric abandoned his bed to take me on a tour of ‘Varuna.’ With son Michael trailing behind, protesting hopelessly that he would do the honours, Eric led the way. This was his house and he, the host. The tour of the ground floor – living room, dining room, sun room, kitchen – took little time. Eric was keen to go upstairs. The room he wanted especially to show me required a long climb up the winding staircase to the family quarters. A determined Eric reached the top of the stairs and signalled to the right. Herein lay the heart of his ‘Varuna’: his and Eleanor’s bedroom for over half a century. A room with a view from its adjacent small terrace, the bedroom