Mary Grant Bruce

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Mary Grant Bruce (24 May 1878 – 2 July 1958), also known as Minnie Bruce, was an Australian children's author and journalist. While all her thirty-seven books enjoyed popular success in Australia and overseas, particularly in the United Kingdom, she was most famous for the Billabong series, focussing on the adventures of the Linton family on Billabong Station in Victoria and in England and Ireland during World War I.

Her writing was considered influential in forming concepts of Australian national identity, especially in relation to visions of the Bush. It was characterised by fierce patriotism, vivid descriptions of the beauties and dangers of the Australian landscape, and humorous, colloquial dialogue celebrating the art of yarning. Her books were also notable and influential through championing of what Bruce held up as the quintessentially Australian Bush values of independence, hard physical labour (for women and children as well as men), mateship, the ANZAC spirit and Bush hospitality against more decadent, self-centred or stolid urban and British values. Her books simultaneously celebrated and mourned the gradual settlement, clearing and development of the Australian wilderness by Europeans.

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[edit] Biography

The close descendant of Irish and Welsh Australians and the fourth of a family of five, Mary Grant Bruce, born in Gippsland, Victoria (Australia) as Minnie Grant Bruce, was the daughter of Eyre Lewis Bruce and Mary (Minnie) Atkinson.

After being educated at Miss Estelle Beausire's Ladies High School, Bruce worked as a secretary before establishing a career as a journalist, poet and writer for Australian magazines. In 1903 she helped form the Writer's Club, which later was submerged into the Lyceum Club (Australia). A Little Bush Maid, her first major success, was originally published as a serial in the children's page of the Lead. Its success enabled her to work as a full-time writer and journalist, and spawned the Billabong series.

In 1913 Bruce visited London, where she met and became engaged to her distant cousin and fellow writer Major George Evans Bruce. She returned to Australia, where they were married and had two sons. On the outbreak of World War I she stayed in County Cork, Ireland for the duration of the war, while her husband served. Once peace was declared, they returned to Australia, where she briefly acted as the editor of Women's World. From 1927 to 1939, and following the death of her younger son in a shooting accident, Bruce, her husband and surviving son travelled in Europe, before returning yet again to Australia.

During World War II, Bruce worked for the Australian Imperial Force Women's Association. Following her husband's death in 1949, Bruce returned for the last time to England, to spend the rest of her life there. She died in Bexhill and was cremated at Hastings.[1]

[edit] Journalistic career

Bruce was a contributor to many magazines, including Blackwood's Magazine, the Morning Post, the Daily Mail, Windsor Magazine, Cassell's Magazine, Strand, Argus, Age, the Melbourne Herald, the Australasian, the Leader, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Sydney Mail, the Lone Hand the Auckland Weekly Press, Woman's World, West Australian and the British Australasian. She claimed to have written on every subject save that of dress. Bruce edited Woman's World for six months in 1926. [2]

[edit] Novels

[edit] The Billabong Series

  • A Little Bush Maid (1910)
  • Mates at Billabong (1912)
  • Norah of Billabong (1913)
  • From Billabong to London (1914)
  • Jim and Wally (1915)
  • Captain Jim (1916)
  • Back to Billabong (1919)
  • Billabong's Daughter (1924)
  • Billabong Adventurers (1928)
  • Bill of Billabong (1933)
  • Wings Above Billabong (1935)
  • Billabong Gold (1937)
  • Son of Billabong (1939)
  • Billabong Riders (1942)

[edit] Other popular works

Golden Fiddles was made into a television miniseries by the South Australian Film Corporation in 1991.

Peter & Co was one of four books selected by Australian children's author John Marsden for the John Marsden presents Australian Children's classics imprint.

[edit] Controversies

Some of Bruce's earlier works are considered to have had offensive and dated content, particularly in regards to racial stereotypes of Australian Aborigines and Chinese and Irish immigrants, and her earlier belief in the theory of Social Darwinism. More recent reprints of the Billabong series have been edited to remove controversial material.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Bruce, Mary Grant
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bruce, Minnie Grant (birth)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Australian children's writer; journalist
DATE OF BIRTH 24 May 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Sale, Victoria (Australia)
DATE OF DEATH 2 July 1958
PLACE OF DEATH Bexhill-on-Sea, United Kingdom