AustLit

'In Douglas Stewart's last letter to his dying friend David Campbell (dated June 1979), he recalled their correspondence, commenting that: 'Whatever happened to be outside [your] window, or seen in a morning's walk ... lifted a letter into poetry.' Two years earlier, Stewart had written that he'd been sorting out a 'great stack' of his friend's letters to go to the National Library of Australia, declaring: 'of course they are full of your nature observations, & will undoubtedly be published some day'. David Campbell was likewise to place the letters which Stewart wrote to him in the Library's Manuscript Collection - and now, with this book, Stewart's prediction of the letters being published comes true. Ranging over a period of four decades, the letters passing between these two major Australian poets talk of life, poetry, publishing (the Bulletin, and Angus & Robertson), friends and professional acquaintances -including Judith Wright, Norman Lindsay, R.D. FitzGerald, A.D. Hope, Rosemary Dobson and Francis Webb -as well as the men's shared love of fishing. Letters Lifted into Poetry movingly documents a great Australian literary friendship and provides a lively window into both men's writing and times.' (Back cover)