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y separately published work icon The White Garden single work   novel  
Is part of Mandala Trilogy 1995 series - author novel (number 1 in series)
Issue Details: First known date: 1995... 1995 The White Garden
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Seven people die in deep sleep therapy. A woman dies from a bee-sting on the grounds of a psychiatric clinic where inmates are encouraged to live out their delusions. A doctor rapes his patients in the Sleeping Beauty Ward.
Carmel Bird's examination of the secrets of the human mind is a chronicle of tragedy that is inadvertently revealed in the search for a lost library book. It is also a compelling portrait of a doctor whose lust for power is a form of madness.'

Source: Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39249.The_White_Garden

Exhibitions

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Notes

  • Also published in braille and sound recording formats.

  • Epigraph:

    Innocence is not to be trusted
            Graham Greene in the Other Man interviews with Marie-Francoise Allain

    Accept no imitations.
        Meditations on the Life and Work of Thomas & Kempis Carrilo Mean

    Patience obtains everything.
        Saint Teresa of Avila

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Untapped , 2021 .
      image of person or book cover 5945162013622670834.png
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1v.p.
      ISBN: 9781922749444
    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Brio Books ; Untapped , 2022 .
      image of person or book cover 1922991169571194718.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 244p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 30 August 2022.
      ISBN: 9781761280818
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Other Formats

  • Braille and sound recording.
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Works about this Work

The Art of Penning the March Hare In : The Treatment of Insanity in Australian Total Institution Fiction Jean-François Vernay , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Aumla , November no. 118 2012; (p. 87-103)

'The treatment of psychological disorders of all kinds and, more largely, of the deterioration of the mind, gradually made its mark in Australian novels in the early 1970s and gave rise to a series of books concerned with mental health issues. The six narratives I have selected for this study-David Ireland's The Flesheaters (1972), Walter Adamson's The Institution (1976), Peter Kocan's two you-narration novellas The Treatment (1980) and The Cure (1983), Carmel Bird's The White Garden (1995), and Amy Witting's Isobela on the Way to the Corner Shop (1999)-all partake of this new trend. This belated literary awakening to insanity is all the stranger seeing that creativity and madness have often been paired, both being particularly apt at articulating the relationship between freedom and constraint, mental representation and reality, the individual and society.' (Author's introduction)
The Many Mysteries of Tasmania Carmel Bird , 2004-2005 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Mystery Readers Journal , Winter vol. 20 no. 4 2004-2005; (p. 18-19)
Conversations at Rochester Road : Carmel Bird Discusses Her Writing with Shirley Walker Shirley Walker (interviewer), 2004 single work interview
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 21 no. 3 2004; (p. 277-288)
All the Way to Cape Grimm : Reflections on Carmel Bird's Fiction Shirley Walker , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 21 no. 3 2004; (p. 264-276) The article presents a critical overview of Carmel Bird's writing, particularly her four major novels. Suggesting that there is a continuity of pattern, theme and sometimes character, Walker examines Bird's major concerns, and the narrative means by which these are expressed (such as fantasy and the Gothic; images and references). She argues that the novels under survey 'raise profound questions: of the presence of evil in the world and the rise of charasmatic leaders who appear to be evil incarnate' (275).
Intertextuality : The White Garden, The Orchard and The Fog Garden Shirley Walker , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: 'Unemployed at Last!' : Essays on Australian Literature to 2002 for Julian Croft 2002; (p. 161-174) Walker's article discusses and compares three women's narrative, all focussing on gardens and orchards as signifiers of feminie regeneration. With their mixture of genres and sources, the texts are seen as examples of a movement in fiction towards complexity, towards 'the layering of history, essay, autobiography, folk-tale and original story-telling into dense and complicated narratives' (161), where fact and fiction are shown to be related and dependent upon one another, and are woven into a pattern which gives a new meaning to the concept of intertextuality.
Garden of Illusion Katharine England , 1996 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 13 January 1996; (p. 13)
— Review of The Grass Sister Gillian Mears , 1995 single work novel ; Camille's Bread Amanda Lohrey , 1995 single work novel ; The White Garden Carmel Bird , 1995 single work novel
What's True, What's Not Anne Susskind , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 30 September 1995; (p. 12A)
— Review of Wildfire Susan Geason , 1995 single work novel ; The White Garden Carmel Bird , 1995 single work novel
Counterfeit Garden/Danger Rosemary Creswell , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 175 1995; (p. 26-27)
— Review of The White Garden Carmel Bird , 1995 single work novel
Death in the Garden Penelope Hanley , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 23 September 1995; (p. C10)
— Review of The White Garden Carmel Bird , 1995 single work novel
Flights of Bees and Fancy Robyn Friend , 1995 single work review
— Appears in: Island , Summer no. 65 1995-1996; (p. 95-98)
— Review of The White Garden Carmel Bird , 1995 single work novel
Intertextuality : The White Garden, The Orchard and The Fog Garden Shirley Walker , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: 'Unemployed at Last!' : Essays on Australian Literature to 2002 for Julian Croft 2002; (p. 161-174) Walker's article discusses and compares three women's narrative, all focussing on gardens and orchards as signifiers of feminie regeneration. With their mixture of genres and sources, the texts are seen as examples of a movement in fiction towards complexity, towards 'the layering of history, essay, autobiography, folk-tale and original story-telling into dense and complicated narratives' (161), where fact and fiction are shown to be related and dependent upon one another, and are woven into a pattern which gives a new meaning to the concept of intertextuality.
All the Way to Cape Grimm : Reflections on Carmel Bird's Fiction Shirley Walker , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 21 no. 3 2004; (p. 264-276) The article presents a critical overview of Carmel Bird's writing, particularly her four major novels. Suggesting that there is a continuity of pattern, theme and sometimes character, Walker examines Bird's major concerns, and the narrative means by which these are expressed (such as fantasy and the Gothic; images and references). She argues that the novels under survey 'raise profound questions: of the presence of evil in the world and the rise of charasmatic leaders who appear to be evil incarnate' (275).
Conversations at Rochester Road : Carmel Bird Discusses Her Writing with Shirley Walker Shirley Walker (interviewer), 2004 single work interview
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 21 no. 3 2004; (p. 277-288)
The Many Mysteries of Tasmania Carmel Bird , 2004-2005 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Mystery Readers Journal , Winter vol. 20 no. 4 2004-2005; (p. 18-19)
Ramona Koval of Radio National's 'Books and Writing' Interviews Carmel Bird about 'The White Garden' Ramona Koval (interviewer), 1995 single work interview
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 175 1995; (p. 27-28)
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Awards

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Last amended 4 Feb 2025 14:52:49
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Sydney, New South Wales,
  • 1960s
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