In the April 2019 edition of the HHR newsletter Di Parsons, HHR Society member from Trentham and now a committee member, wrote a review of a poem, ‘The Richardson House at Chiltern’ by Gerald Murnane from his recently published collection, Green Shadows and Other Poems. Murnane is the esteemed author of novels, short stories, essays, poetry and memoir. Among other awards he has won the prestigious Patrick White award and the Melbourne Prize for Literature.
In subsequent correspondence with Murnane Di asked him if he had written any more about Richardson and her works, and he replied: In all of my published works, the only other references to the fictional Richard Mahony and the book that gave rise to him are the pages 84 to 90 of ‘A History of Books’, published by Giramondo.
With kind permission from Gerald Murnane we reproduce here a section of those pages in A History of Books (and a special ‘Author’s Note’ written for this article), followed by the relevant passages from The Fortunes of Richard Mahony for your study, enjoyment and perhaps a stimulus to read or re-read both works.