AustLit

'The death at ten minutes to one in the morning on 3 March 1949, in Glasgow, Scotland, of John Alexander Cameron, retired journalist aged 76years, went unremarked other than the official record. But several months later, on 31 August 1949, the Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser published an obituary written by Cameron's, Dame Mary Gilmore. Dame Mary, poet, author, radical socialist, journalist and grand old lady of Australian letters, 'has now passed into Australian legend'. Her brother is virtually unknown today. In contrast, Dame Mary's obituary suggested in his adventurous life he was not without achievement, recognition and reward. Yet, how much of what she wrote was true> A characteristic of her ostensibly non-fiction prose was that it contained many 'fabrications', particularly when it came to her own family. Was her obituary for her brother similarly embellished?' (From author's introduction p272)