AustLit

'This article sets out to explore the literary aspirations and career of the early post-federation Australian writer William Gosse Hay through the extensive collection of personal papers he left behind him. Hay was born into an affluent Adelaide family in 1875, and attended Melbourne Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before marrying and settling down to a reclusive life in the Adelaide foothills to begin writing full time. He eventually published six novels and a collection of short stories. Many of these were favourably reviewed, but they failed to attract significant commercial success. After a brief revival of critical interest in his writing after his death in 1945, Hay once again faded from prominence – remembered only in passing as an enigmatic figure who fell outside of the mainstream of Australian literary production. In tracing Hay’s pursuit of literary success and popular notoriety through his personal papers, the article draws on recent archival studies research to explore Hay’s career from the ‘inside’ and considers the role of the archive itself as a factor in his quest for recognition.'

Source: Abstract.