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Last Letter to a Niece single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 2001... 2001 Last Letter to a Niece
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Best Australian Stories 2001 Peter Craven (editor), Melbourne : Black Inc. , 2001 Z936532 2001 anthology short story Melbourne : Black Inc. , 2001 pg. 54-65
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A History of Books Gerald Murnane , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2012 Z1852640 2012 selected work short story

    'This new work by Gerald Murnane is a fictionalised autobiography told in thirty sections, each of which begins with the memory of a book that has left an image on the writer's mind. The titles aren't given but the reader follows the clues, recalling in the process a parade of authors, the great, the popular, and the now-forgotten. The images themselves, with their scenes of marital discord, violence and madness, or their illuminated landscapes that point to the consolations of a world beyond fiction, give new intensity to Murnane's habitual concern with the anxieties and aspirations of the writing life, in the absence of religious belief.

    'A History of Books is accompanied by three shorter pieces of fiction which play on these themes, featuring the writer at different ages, as a young boy, a teacher, and an old recluse.' (From the publisher's website.)

    Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2012
    pg. 189-205
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Collected Short Fiction Stream System : The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane Gerald Murnane , Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2018 13182651 2018 selected work poetry

    'This volume brings together Gerald Murnane’s shorter works of fiction, most of which have been out of print for the past twenty five years. They include such masterpieces as ‘When the Mice Failed to Arrive’, ‘Stream System’, ‘First Love’, ‘Emerald Blue’, and ‘The Interior of Gaaldine’, a story which holds the key to the long break in Murnane’s career, and points the way towards his later works, from Barley Patch to Border Districts. Much is made of Murnane’s distinctive and elaborate style as a writer, but there is no one to match him in his sensitive portraits of family members – parents, uncles and aunts, and particularly children – and in his probing of situations which contain anxiety and embarrassment, shame or delight.'

    Source: Publisher's blurb.

    Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2018
    pg. 459

Works about this Work

Images and Feelings in a Sort of Eternity” : Gerald Murnane’s Ideal Female Reader Samantha Trayhurn , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Gerald Murnane : Another World in This One 2020; (p. 37-44)
'The blurb to Gerald Murnane’s A History of Books (2012) states that the main body of work: “is accompanied by three shorter works, ‘As It Were a Letter’, ‘The Boy’s Name Was David’ and ‘Last Letter to a Niece’, in which a writer searches for an ideal world, an ideal sentence, and an ideal reader”.¹ Presuming that the three texts correspond in order to the three aims, “Last Letter to a Niece” presents an important insight into who Murnane writes for and, perhaps, some indications as to why he writes at all. In this essay, I posit that Murnane’s quest for an ideal reader is no less than a quest for his own ideal existence. To validate these claims, I will draw on Murnane’s 2017 address at the Goroke Golf Club, “The Still-Breathing Author”, as well as conduct a reading of “Last Letter to a Niece”, and sections of his wider oeuvre.' (Introduction)
Images and Feelings in a Sort of Eternity” : Gerald Murnane’s Ideal Female Reader Samantha Trayhurn , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Gerald Murnane : Another World in This One 2020; (p. 37-44)
'The blurb to Gerald Murnane’s A History of Books (2012) states that the main body of work: “is accompanied by three shorter works, ‘As It Were a Letter’, ‘The Boy’s Name Was David’ and ‘Last Letter to a Niece’, in which a writer searches for an ideal world, an ideal sentence, and an ideal reader”.¹ Presuming that the three texts correspond in order to the three aims, “Last Letter to a Niece” presents an important insight into who Murnane writes for and, perhaps, some indications as to why he writes at all. In this essay, I posit that Murnane’s quest for an ideal reader is no less than a quest for his own ideal existence. To validate these claims, I will draw on Murnane’s 2017 address at the Goroke Golf Club, “The Still-Breathing Author”, as well as conduct a reading of “Last Letter to a Niece”, and sections of his wider oeuvre.' (Introduction)
Last amended 6 Sep 2018 06:38:17
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