Janet Gertrude "Nettie" Palmer (née Higgins) (18 August 1885 – 19 October 1964) was an Australian poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic of her day. She corresponded with women writers and collated the Centenary Gift Book which gathered together writing by Victorian women.

Early life

Nettie Higgins was born in Bendigo, Victoria, the niece of both H.B. Higgins, a leading Victorian radical political figure and later a federal minister and justice of the High Court of Australia, and of H.B. Higgins' sister, Ina Higgins, the first female landscape architect in Victoria. A brilliant scholar and linguist, Nettie was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne, the University of Melbourne and studied phonetics in Germany and France for the International Diploma of Phonetics. She was active in literary and socialist circles on her return to Melbourne and formed a deep and long term relationship with the visionary poet Bernard O'Dowd. While her brother Esmonde Higgins was a prominent early Australian Communist, Nettie never joined any political party: she was much more interested in broad social change. Vance and Nettie campaigned against the Hughes government's attempt to introduce conscription into Australia. In 2018, Nettie was inducted into the Hall of Fame for the Melbourne Press Club in recognition of her elegant prose.

Bibliography

Poetry collections

  • The South Wind (1914)
  • Shadowy Paths (1915)

Non-fiction

  • Henry Bournes Higgins : A Memoir (1931)
  • Talking It Over (1932)
  • Memoirs of Alice Henry (1944) edited
  • Fourteen Years : Extracts From a Private Journal 1925-1939 (1948)
  • Henry Handel Richardson : A Study (1950)
  • The Dandenongs (1952)
  • Henry Lawson (1952)
  • Bernard O'Dowd (1954) with Victor Kennedy
  • Letters of Vance and Nettie Palmer 1915-1963 (1977) edited by Vivian Smith
  • Nettie Palmer : Her Private Journal Fourteen Years, Poems, Reviews and Literary Essays (1988) edited by Vivian Smith
  • Loving Words — Love Letters of Nettie and Vance Palmer 1909-1964 (2018) edited and selected by Deborah Jordan

Anthology edited

  • An Australian Story-Book (1928)
  • Centenary Gift Book (1934) edited with Frances Fraser
  • Coast to Coast : Australian Stories 1949-50 (1950)

References

Sources

  • Adelaide, Debra (1988) Australian women writers: a bibliographic guide, London, Pandora
  • Goldsworthy, Kerryn (2000) "Fiction from 1900 to 1970" in Webby, Elizabeth (ed.) The Cambridge companion to Australian literature, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
  • Jordan, Deborah (1999) Nettie Palmer: Search for an Aesthetic, Melbourne, University of Melbourne History Monograph,
  • Loving Words Love Letters of Nettie and Vance Palmer 1909-1914 edited and selected by Deborah Jordan, Blackheath, Brandl & Schlesinger, 2018
  • Modjeska, Drusilla (1981) Exiles at home: Australian women writers 1925–1945, London, Sirius
  • Rorabacher, Louise E. (1973) Marjorie Barnard and M. Barnard Eldershaw, New York, Twayne Publishers
  • Smith, Vivian, 'Vance and Nettie Palmer' New York, Twayne
  • Wilde, W., Hooton, J. & Andrews, B (1994) The Oxford Companion of Australian Literature 2nd ed. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press
  • Deborah Jordan 'All that my love and I/Strive till after we die': The Courtship Letters of Vance and Nettie Palmer, 1909–1914 JASAL 8 (2008)
  • Palmer Collection National Library of Australia
  • Loving Words: Love Letters of Nettie and Vance Palmer 1900-1914
  • Nettie Palmer, Melbourne Press Club Hall of Fame