Nancy Phelan papers, 1866-1996

MLMSS 6427/Boxes 1-46, 48-67, 69-74
MLMSS 6427/Boxes 47X, 68X

fonds

1866-1996

Textual Records, Graphic Materials, Drawings, Ephemera, Clippings, Photographs, Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Musical Sound Recordings

139564

9.46 metres of textual material (72 boxes, 2 outsize boxes) includes photographs - manuscript, computer printouts, typescript, typescript, carbon, typescript, processed, and printed

Nancy Phelan, author, was born in Sydney in 1913, daughter of William John Creagh, solicitor, and his wife Florence Amelia, sister of the Australian writers Louise and Amy Eleanor Mack. She went abroad first, in 1938, to England. There she married Raymond Sydney Phelan and their daughter Vanessa was born in 1940. In 1945 she became Director of Illustration Research of the newly-formed Common Ground Ltd, which produced visual aids for education. Phelan returned to Australia in 1946 and continued her work in this field. With her husband and Axel Poignant she established Filmstrips, the Sydney-based agent for Common Ground.

From 1951 to 1956 Phelan served with the South Pacific Commission, initially in the Literature Bureau and then in charge of the Visual Aids Project. Her travels in the Gilbert Islands provided the basis for her first book, Atoll Holiday (1958). A six-month appointment followed as Visual Aids Adviser for the Cook Islands Administration at Rarotonga.

While living in Paris in 1957, Phelan became interested in Hatha Yoga, an Oriental philosophy of physical, mental and spiritual well-being. The following year back in Sydney she became a pupil of, and later first assistant teacher to, Michael Volin, an international authority on the subject. Volin had opened the first Yoga school in Australia in 1950. They co-wrote several books, including Essence of Yoga (1963) and Yoga over Forty (1965).

Nancy Phelan's publications include four novels, The River and the Brook (1962), Serpents in Paradise (1967), The Voice beyond the Trees (1985) and Home is the Sailor (1987); two volumes of memoirs, A Kingdom by the Sea (1969) and The Swift Foot of Time (1983); and a local history, Mosman Impressions (1993). An inveterate traveller, her experiences have been recorded in Atoll Holiday (1958), Welcome the Wayfarer: A Traveller in Modern Turkey (1965), Pillow of Grass (1969), Some Come Early, Some Come Late (1970), The Chilean Way (1973), Morocco is a Lion (1982) and Pieces of Heaven: In the South Seas (1996). She has also written two biographies, one on her cousin, the conductor Sir Charles Mackerras and another on her aunt, Louise Mack. Her friendship with Russian emigre Nina Nicolaieff resulted in their collaborating in writing The Art of Russian Cooking (1969).

Nancy Phelan divides her time between her home at Lawson in the Blue Mountains, N.S.W., and apartment at Potts Point in Sydney.

Series I: Personal correspondence, 1933-1996
Series 2: Miscellaneous personal papers, 193--198-
Series 3: Publishing correspondence, 1954-1989
Series 4: Literary manuscripts, with working papers including correspondence, 1866-1996
Series 5: Records concerning Filmstrips, 1947-1950
Series 6: Papers concerning service with South Pacific Commission, 1947-1961
Series 7: oral history interviews and other recordings concerning Sir Charles Mackerras, 1977-1987

This collection comprises 7 record series. You may navigate to a more detailed description of each series from this record.