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Overview | Administrative Information | Container List
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| Manuscript Name | Papers of Barney Roberts |
| Manuscript Number | MSS 037 |
| Last Updated | June 2021 |
| Extent | 4 boxes |
| Location | Special Collections, UNSW Canberra |
| Abstract | Correspondence, manuscripts and photographs |
Collection Subject Type
Literary
Scope and Content
This collection relates to Barney Roberts and contains correspondence, photographs, and typescripts of his poetry, fiction, essays and autobiography, including Where’s morning gone?, The penalty of Adam, Where man ferns grow: Trees in Tasmania today and tomorrow, and A kind of cattle
Date Range of Content
1945-1987
Biographical Note
Tasmanian writer and poet Barney Roberts was mainly educated by his mother who was a classical scholar and operated her own school in Victoria. His father was a farmer known for quoting from Ruskin, Wells and Emerson. Roberts went to high school in Burnie and worked as a bank clerk for three years before World War 2. Captured in Greece in 1941, he was a prisoner of war for four years, during which time he cut trees in Austria. At this time he also wrote, as he described, 'doggerel verse and several bad plays' (Directory of Australian Poets, 1980).
When he returned to Australia in 1947, he set up a dairy farm near Flowerdale living there until his death. These experiences provided a background to his activities as a conservationist, and a trustee and president of the Tasmanian Peace Trust. Roberts also had a nursery which was managed by two of his sons, Max and Bruce, after he retired. He undertook a writing course in the 1960s, writing a history of his town, Flowerdale to 1963 (1963), and had his first fiction published in 1972 with three of his entries in the FAW/Advocate Story Competition. He contributed to many magazines (Patterns, Overland, The Bulletin, Inprint, Walkabout, Mattoid and others) and newspapers (Canberra Times, Courier Mail, Advocate (Burnie), Mercury (Hobart)). Roberts was awarded an Honorary DLitt by the University of Tasmania in 2005. He also ran the publishing business 'Robin Books'.
Pete Hay in Tasmania Forty Degrees South (2006, Winter) said: 'He was Tasmania's own farmer-poet - our equivalent, if you like, of Robert Frost. He was a peerless writer of place and nature'.
Reference: Austlit - https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A18229
Administrative Information
Access and Copying Conditions
Access: Open Access
This collection contains a variety of copyright material. Copyright is held by the creator of each item. Specific conditions for this collection are listed below. If no conditions are stipulated then the standard terms of the Copyright Act apply for published and unpublished items. Digitised material from manuscript collections is provided to clients by UNSW Canberra in good faith for private study and research only, and may not be published or re-purposed without the express and written permission of the individual legal holder of that copyright. Refer also to the UNSW copyright, disclaimer and takedown policy.
Copying: Copying of material for private study and research is approved
Preferred Citation
Papers of Barney Roberts, Special Collections, UNSW Canberra, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, MSS 037, Box [Number], Folder [Number].
Provenance
The collection was acquired in 1987
Subject Keywords
Subjects
Australian poetry; Australian fiction; Nature in literature, Trees - Tasmania; World War, 1939-1945 - Prisoners and prisons, German; World War, 1939-1945 - Personal narratives, Australian
Personal Names
Barney Roberts, 1920-2005
Occupations
Writer, poet, naturalist
Container List
Box 1
Manuscripts
Folder 1
Typescripts of 'Bidge', 'Charlie and the bonus', 'It’s how it is', 'Kelly', 'No escape', 'The interview', 'The orchardist', 'The price of wool', 'The total concept of cultural advancement', 'Our wiser sons'
Typescript of an article on Stephen Spurling
Folder 2
Typewritten manuscript of Where’s morning gone?
Folder 3
Typewritten manuscript of A kind of cattle (1/2)
Folder 4
Typewritten manuscript of A kind of cattle (2/2)
Folder 5
Typewritten manuscript of Where’s morning gone? and additional material
Folder 6
Typewritten manuscript of Where’s morning gone? and additional material
Folder 7
Annotated and corrected typewritten manuscript of A kind of cattle (1/2)
Folder 8
Annotated and corrected typewritten manuscript of A kind of cattle (2/2)
Box 2
Manuscripts and correspondence
Folder 9
Typewritten manuscript of A kind of cattle
Folder 10
Bound typewritten manuscript of A kind of cattle (‘Publishers copy’), with photographs
Folder 11
Early stories
Folder 12
Early stories
Folder 13
Correspondence, 1945-1987
Folder 14
Typewritten manuscripts of poetry and short stories
Box 3
Manuscripts, poetry and photographs
Folder 15
Typewritten manuscript of The penalty of Adam (autographed copy)
Folder 16
Typescript of Where man ferns grow: Trees in Tasmania today and tomorrow (1/4), pp.1-25, with 39 photographs
Folder 17
Typescript of Where man ferns grow: Trees in Tasmania today and tomorrow (2/4), pp.26-50, with 28 photographs
Folder 18
Typescript of Where man ferns grow: Trees in Tasmania today and tomorrow (3/4), pp.51-74, with 35 photographs
Folder 19
Typescript of Where man ferns grow: Trees in Tasmania today and tomorrow (4/4), pp.75-100 and index, with 41 photographs
Folder 20
Miscellaneous poetry
Folder 21
Typescript and notes for A kind of cattle, with photocopies of photographs
Box 4
Correspondence and manuscripts
Folder 22
Correspondence from the Australian War Memorial regarding the publication of A kind of cattle, 1983-1987
Folder 23
Part manuscript of A kind of cattle (1/3)
Folder 24
Part manuscript of A kind of cattle (2/3)
Folder 25
Part manuscript of A kind of cattle (3/3)
Folder 26
Typescript of The penalty of Adam