Charles Shaw (writer)

Charles Herbert Shaw (10 August 1900 - 1 August 1955) was an Australian journalist and novelist.

Shaw was born in South Melbourne, Victoria. During the Depression years he held a variety of jobs in the countryside and his interest in writing led him to work at a newspaper in Forbes, New South Wales. Shaw had several stories published by The Bulletin and eventually was employed by the magazine as a rural editor.[1] He had two collections of Outback short stories Outback Occupations (1943) and A Sheaf of Shorts (1944) and one volume of verse The Warrumbungle Mare (1943) published as well as two detective stories The Green Token (1943) and Treasure of the Hills (1944).[1]

Shaw decided after several rejections that no one outside Australia had an interest in stories about the Outback. He wrote a novel Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, published in 1952, about a U.S. Marine and a nun on a Japanese-held Pacific island. It was adapted for the screen as a 1957 film by John Huston and John Lee Mahin. The film won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium in 1957.

Shaw wrote a series of four detective novels about Dennis Delaney under the nom de plume of "Bant Singer", named after his favourite car, a Singer Bantam.[2]

He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in Sydney on 1 August 1955.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rutledge, M, Shaw, Charles Herbert (1900 - 1955), Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
  2. ↑ Loder, John & Batten, Sally Australian Crime Fiction: A Bibliography, 1857-1993 1994 National Centre of Australian Studies

References