Eric Lambert

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Eric Lambert (January 19, 1918—April 16, 1966) was an Australian author and a member of the Communist Party of Australia.

Born in London, Eric Lambert's family soon emigrated to Sydney.^[1] He left school at the age of 17 and worked in a garage. In 1940 he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force and served in the Middle East and Papua New Guinea. He was discharged in 1945 and his friend Frank Hardy had soon convinced him to join the Communist Party. He started writing on a Commonwealth Literary Fund grant and his first novel The Twenty Thousand Thieves was published, in London, in 1952. It was based on his memories of WWII and despite its reception becoming caught up in Cold War politics, it sold three quarters of a million copies. In 1950 he was married to the school-teacher Joyce Margaret Boyd Smith whom he later divorced.

In the mid 50s he was a co-founder of the journal Overland. In 1955 he attended the World Assembly for Peace in Helsinki and afterwards stayed on in London. He was in Hungary during the 1956 uprising and sided with the anti-communist revolutionaries, writing about events there for the The Daily Telegraph, much to the chagrin of his former communist colleagues. He remarried in 1963 to Phyllis Daphne Hogarth and they had two daughters, though he died of heart-failure soon after in 1966.

He had continued writing throughout his time in Europe, and apart from drawing further on his war experience he also dealt with the Eureka Stockade, in The Five Bright Stars (1954) and Ned Kelly in Kelly (1964).

[edit] Bibliography

• The Twenty Thousand Thieves (London: Frederick Muller Ltd, 1952)
• The Veterans (1954)
• The Dolphin
• The Five Bright Stars (1954)
• Glory Thrown In (1959)
• Ballarat (1962)
• Kelly (1964) Ned Kelly
• MacDougals Farm (1965)
• The Tender Conspiracy (London: Frederick Muller Ltd, 1965)
• Hiroshima Reef (1967)

[edit] External links

• Writing Revolution PhD thesis by Teri Merlyn (Pdf)

[edit] References

Persondata
NAME	Lambert, Eric
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	D. Brennan (Pen name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Twentieth century Australian author and a member of the Communist Party of Australia
DATE OF BIRTH	January 19, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hackney, London, England
DATE OF DEATH	April 16, 1966
PLACE OF DEATH	Little Maplestead, Essex, England