Reginald Ottley literary papers and sound recordings, 1930-1989

fonds

1930-1989

Textual Records, Clippings, Nonmusical Sound Recordings

411749

1.17 metres of textual material (7 boxes)
6 sound cassettes

Reginald Ottley (1909-1985) was a multi-award winning Australian children's author. His Yamboorah trilogy which focuses on a boy's experiences on an outback cattle station is considered a landmark contribution to Australian children's literature. The first book in the trilogy, By the Sandhills of Yamboorah (1965), won a number of awards in the United States where it was published as Boy Alone (1966). Recurrent themes in Ottley's writing of endurance in the face of hardship, usually in remote locations such as the Australian bush and outback, are largely drawn from his own experiences. Born in England, he went to sea as a deck boy at 14 and was rescued from the Atlantic Ocean. In Australia he knocked around as a rouseabout, stockman, cattle drover and horsebreaker. He managed a cattle property in Fiji. When war broke out he enlisted in the Australian Remount Squadron. For a while after the war he trained racehorses in Sydney, then he was off to the British Solomon Islands to reactivate a cattle breeding project at Guadacanal. He returned to Sydney and managed a thoroughbred horse stud until offered a stint as manager of a cattle property in French New Caledonia. In the 1950s he went to write in England. He was a prolific short story writer and adapted his work for radio. His first novel, Stampede (1961) was published in London. Ottley settled in Australia in 1970, living in Queensland from 1971 until his death in Toowoomba in 1985.

Reference:
Compiled from the collection

This collection represents a comprehensive record of Reginald Ottley’s life as a writer, including drafts of his short stories, radio scripts and selected novels. His correspondence with American and British publishers in the 1960s and 1970s documents their propensity for modifying his Australianisms for their local markets. Also included are foreign translations and titles with American and British imprints of his novels, and recordings of an interview with him in 1976, complemented with some of his talks and readings.

SERIES 01
Reginald Ottley literary papers, 1930-1989

SERIES 02
Reginald Ottley sound recordings of interview, talks and readings, 1976-ca. 1980

Copyright status:: In copyright
Research & study copies allowed: Applies only to material in which Reginald Ottley owns copyright
Approval for reproduction required: From the Library and Margaret Ottley