GA Wilkes

John Hanrahan reviews 'A.D. Hope' by Kevin Hart, 'James McAuley' by Lyn McCredden, 'Peter Porter' by Peter Steele, 'Reconnoitres' edited by Margaret Harris & Elizabeth Webby, 'Annals of Australian Literature' edited by Joy Hooton & Harry Heseltine

December 1992, no. 147

Oxford University Press has begun a welcome series called Australian Writers. Two further titles, Imre Salusinszky on Gerald Murnane and Ivor Indyk on David Malouf, will appear in March 1993, and eleven more books are in preparation. Though I find the first three uneven in quality, they make a very promising start to a series. In some ways they resemble Oliver and Boyd’s excellent series, Writers and Critics, even being of about the same length. However this new series is less elementary, more demanding of the reader. It is, predictably, far sparser in critical evaluation, concentrating on hermeneutics, and biographical information is as rare as a wombat waltz.

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A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms by G.A. Wilkes

by Barry Dickins •

June 1986, no. 81

Barry Dickins reviews 'A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms' by G.A. Wilkes

It is impossible to know who first said, ‘Get your end in!’ but that is probably the only normal colloquialism of ours left out of this beaut (if you’ve got about forty bucks) book.

Clearly, G. A. Wilkes has had his end in; we all have, haven’t we? But Australia’s greatest saying is not included. Perhaps it is Welsh.

I’m buggered if I could have summoned up the bloody patience to wade through valleys and dusty quagmires of books, newspapers, dead pamphlets, had-the-gong magazines and no-longer-with-us snippets, fragments, skerricks and dust of deceased smartarsedom.

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