Letters sent to Dorothea Mackellar regarding a request to set her poem 'My Country' to music

MLMSS 10467

fonds

1955

9611281

0.01 metres of textual material (1 folder) - typescript

Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968) is best known as a poet and is the author of 'My Country'.

Beatrice Davis (1909-1992) was an editor at Australian bookselling and publishing firm Angus & Robertson from 1937-1973.

Horace James Perkins (1901-1986) was an Australian composer and worked as a musical advisor for the ABC Adelaide offices in the 1950s.

Reference:
Beverley Kingston, 'Davis, Beatrice Deloitte (1909–1992)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/davis-beatrice-deloitte-17805/text29386, (accessed online 22 July 2020).

Trove. National Library of Australia. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130972552 (accessed 22 July 2020)

Purchased by the vendor from a Melbourne collector in 2016

Letter from H. J. Perkins on letterhead of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Adelaide, dated 14 January 1955, to Angus & Robertson, Sydney, seeking permission to set music to Dorothea Mackellar's poem 'My country' for a song competition. In an accompanying letter on Angus & Robertson letterhead dated 19 January 1955, Beatrice Davis writes to Dorothea Mackellar, enclosing Perkins’ letter and explaining that she has informed him that if the song is ‘published, recorded or performed any fees or royalties would have to be shared equally with you’.

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