AustLit

'When he was 22 and a mint-new member of the Victorian parliament, Alfred Deakin won wild applause with a maiden speech in which he tendered his resignation. In a political career spanning almost 40 years, Deakin would nearly always be on the verge of resigning.' (Introduction)

'There has been an argument going on in the Liberal Party about the nature of the Menzies heritage – was Robert Menzies, the founder of the modern party, a liberal or a conservative? Notably absent from this discussion has been the national figure who was the first leader of a united anti-Labor party and who also happens to have been a father of Federation, Alfred Deakin. If our politicians still read books – and sometimes one does wonder – Judith Brett’s new biography, The Enigmatic Mr Deakin, should be required reading. As Brett has pointed out, the minority governments of the Federation’s first decade were extraordinarily productive in laying the legislative foundations of the new Commonwealth, in stark contrast to the parliamentary paralysis of recent years.' (Introduction)

'A few weeks ago I climbed a creaking staircase and walked along the corridor­ to the old banquet hall at the majestic 19th-century Shamrock Hotel in Bendigo, outside Melbourne. Today, it is a popular spot for wedding­ receptions. But it was here in 1898 that Alfred Deakin delivered a mesmerising speech that galvanised national politics.' (Introduction)

'Writing biography,” as Judith Brett confides in the opening pages of The Enigmatic Mr Deakin  (Text; $49.99), “is an invasive business, and perilous”. Sifting through the “surviving evidence” for “plausible paths”, the challenges are daunting: separating myth from fact, establishing intimacy and retaining distance, liberating and controlling the subject’s voice, being fearless in judgement while maintaining fairness and compassion, embroidering the private and public lives, retrieving life both as it was lived (a phantom) and as it was remembered - and, finally, deciding whether or not to break free from the tidal force of chronology. There are as many ways to write biography as there are to live.'  (Introduction)

'Alfred Deakin, thrice prime minister in the first Commonwealth decade, was unusually gifted and complex — indeed, enigmatic. Earlier analysts have presented multiple facets of this intriguing figure. Walter Murdoch’s “sketch” (1923) captured Deakin’s charismatic appeal, but not the mixed reactions of his contemporaries; John La Nauze produced a meticulous account of the federal political career (1965), but skimmed Deakin’s formative period in colonial politics and ignored the challenges of his inner life and religion; Al Gabay gave us some grasp of the “mystic” Deakin’s religious and spiritual dimensions (1992); and John Rickard provided an engaging interpretation of the “family romance” from which this cosseted prodigy emerged (1996). ' (Introduction)