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y separately published work icon Careful, He Might Hear You single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1963... 1963 Careful, He Might Hear You
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'It’s the Great Depression. Six-year-old PS is an orphan. He lives in Sydney with his Aunt Lila. But all that is about to change. Now his Aunt Vanessa has decided to take proper care of him.

'Careful, He Might Hear You is one of the most extraordinary portraits of childhood in Australian fiction.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Careful, He Might Hear You Michael Jenkins , ( dir. Carl Schultz ) Sydney : Syme International Productions , 1983 Z1359519 1983 single work film/TV

Set in the Depression, the story follows the bitter struggle between two sisters over the custody of their orphaned nephew. Each determined to have the boy, both women resort to deceitful manipulation and cruel lies.

Careful, He Might Hear You David Sale , Ron Creager (composer), 1999 single work musical theatre

Notes

  • Dedication: For H. S. L.
  • Fictionalised autobiography.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Text Publishing , 2012 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Introduction, Robyn Nevin , essay

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Gollancz ,
      1963 .
      Extent: 339p.
      Note/s:
      • Verso of title page: 'First published July 1963 / Second impression September 1963'.
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Harper and Row ,
      1963 .
      image of person or book cover 4371604578718275593.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 339p.
      Edition info: 1st ed.
      Reprinted: 1963 Four times.
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Fawcett Publications ,
      1965 .
      image of person or book cover 5023238235275574086.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 271p.
      Note/s:
      • Crest book, R796. 'A Crest reprint.'
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Pan ,
      1966 .
      image of person or book cover 8951593214479983371.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 300p.
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Pan , 1983 .
      image of person or book cover 3298441553842217091.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 299p.
      Reprinted: 1984
      ISBN: 0330270486
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Washington Square Press ,
      1984 .
      Extent: 314p.
      Note/s:
      • Records indicate that there was also a 1984 Pocket Books [imprint] produced as a Washington Square Press publication.
      ISBN: 0671504355
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Pan ,
      1984 .
      image of person or book cover 606292264479369596.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      ISBN: 0330284614
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 1997 .
      Extent: 299p.
      ISBN: 0330360477
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2012 .
      image of person or book cover 3927253419114334135.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: xiv, 495p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 26 April 2012.
      ISBN: 9781921922244 (pbk.)
      Series: y separately published work icon Text Classics Text Publishing (publisher), Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012- Z1851461 2012 series - publisher novel 'Great books by great Australian storytellers.' (Text website.)
Notes:
Condensed edition.

Other Formats

  • Also braille, sound recording, large print.

Works about this Work

Books to Read through Coronavirus Lockdown as Recommended by Professional Readers Hannah Reich , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , May 2020;

'We may be entering the dreaded third quarter of isolation, when things start getting a bit weird and a little too much to bear.'

Films Hollywood Almost Made about Australia Stephen Vagg , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: FilmInk , 14 February 2019;
‘The Writers’ Picnic’ : Genealogy and Homographesis in the Fiction of Sumner Locke Elliott Shaun Bell , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 17 no. 2 2018;

'Like many mid-century authors, Sumner Locke-Elliott fled Australia for more welcoming shores. From his first novel Careful He Might Hear You (1963), Locke-Elliott laid the foundations for a fictional self-authorship that suffused his writing with biographic detail and themes of origin, place and time. Despite his long absence from Australia and his naturalisation as an American citizen, his final novel and fictional coming out in Fairyland (1990) returns readers to the homophobic Sydney of his childhood. This blurring of biographic and fictional detail within the representational space of childhood creates an embodied literary network that connects Australia of the 1930s & 1940s and New York of the 1980s & 1990s, merging literary corpus and authorial life. Taking up this sense of presence, absence and connection, I argue that Locke-Elliot’s representation of childhood is a nostalgic point of interface that generatively refigures his oeuvre as an embodied queer and transnational literary network.' (Publication abstract)

'But Even Memory Is Fiction' : The (Fictional) Life and (Self ) Writing of Sumner Locke Elliott Shaun Bell , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 75 no. 2 2016; (p. 172-192)
'Shaun Bell recuperates Lock-Elliott from his common status as footnote or aside in accounts of literary networks, to identify common figures and set pirces across his oeuvre, as a ways of reading of his 'construction of self through nostalgia, art and life.' (Editorial, 7)
[Review] Careful, He Might Hear You Lorelei Vashti-Waite , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 14 2012; (p. 26)

— Review of Careful, He Might Hear You Sumner Locke Elliott , 1963 single work novel
[Review] Careful, He Might Hear You Lorelei Vashti-Waite , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 14 2012; (p. 26)

— Review of Careful, He Might Hear You Sumner Locke Elliott , 1963 single work novel
Two Departures Alan Davies , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: Nation , 8 February 1964; (p. 23)

— Review of Light and Shadow Herz Bergner , Alec Braizblatt (translator), 1963 single work novel ; Careful, He Might Hear You Sumner Locke Elliott , 1963 single work novel
Recent Novels John McLaren , 1964 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 29 1964; (p. 57-58)

— Review of Hopeton High : A Novel Brian James , 1963 single work novel ; The Man Whose Name Was Mud Gavin Casey , 1963 single work novel ; Careful, He Might Hear You Sumner Locke Elliott , 1963 single work novel ; Shake the Golden Bough : A Novel T. A. G. Hungerford , 1963 single work novel ; Son of Mars : A Novel Mungo MacCallum , 1963 single work novel ; Green Gold Nene Gare , 1963 single work novel
[Review] Careful, He Might Hear You and Shake the Golden Bough John K. Ewers , 1963 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October vol. 2 no. 12 1963; (p. 193)

— Review of Shake the Golden Bough : A Novel T. A. G. Hungerford , 1963 single work novel ; Careful, He Might Hear You Sumner Locke Elliott , 1963 single work novel
y separately published work icon [Conversation with Sumner Locke Elliott] Hazel de Berg (interviewer), 1970 Z1294207 1970 single work interview Locke Elliott speaks of his studies; his family; about writing one act plays; his decision to become a writer and not an actor; his return to Australia in 1950; writing Rusty Bugles; writing in New York (late 1950s) for television; the changing role of the television writer; his first novel Careful He Might Hear You and the ensuing success.
Classics Released Marc McEvoy , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 22 January 2012; (p. 7)
Literary Heroes Forgotten Michael Heywood , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 22 January 2012; (p. 9)
Sumner Locke Elliott Candida Baker (interviewer), 1987 single work biography interview
— Appears in: Yacker 2 : Australian Writers Talk About Their Work 1987; (p. 42-70)
Careful, He's Made Himself Heard at Last Susan Wyndham , 1990 single work criticism biography
— Appears in: The Australian Magazine , 16-17 June 1990; (p. 4)
Last amended 11 Oct 2018 10:23:10
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  • 1920s
  • 1930s
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