[Australian Modernism] ['Jindyworobak Anthology']

Jindyworobak Anthology, 1938 [to] Jindyworobak Anthology, 1945 [the first eight volumes]

Adelaide, F.W. Preece (the first six volumes), and Melbourne, Georgian House, 1938 to 1945.

Octavo, eight volumes, with pagination ranging from 52 to 80 pages per volume.

Monochrome wrappers printed in contrasting ink (both different in all cases); wrappers occasionally a little marked or sunned, with minimal signs of use and age; the volume for 1943 has a light shallow tidemark visible along the leading edge of some leaves; overall, a very good run.

The first eight issues of this influential annual anthology of verse.

'The "Jindyworobak Anthology", published annually from 1938-1953, was initiated by South Australian poet Rex Ingamells. It published poetry that set out to avoid European influences and relate more closely to the Australian environment, history and traditions, including those of the Aboriginal people, searching in this way for an authentic expression of Australian culture. The name "Jindyworobak" was taken from the glossary of James Devaney's "The Vanished Tribes" (1929), as an Aboriginal word meaning "to annex", or "join". Ingamells adopted it for the movement as symbolic of the joining of "white" and "black" culture. The first issues of the "Anthology", edited by Ingamells himself, did much to set the direction of the Jindyworobak movement and rapidly attracted contributors. However, the movement was waning by the nineteen-fifties and the 1953 "Anthology" was the last issued' (AustLit website). The first issue is subtitled 'Poems by young Australians of Today'; subsequent issues are subtitled 'Australian Contemporary Verse' until the number for 1944, where the subtitle is omitted. Rex Ingamells edited the first four volumes; the following four volumes were edited by Victor Kennedy, Flexmore Hudson, W. Hart-Smith, and Gina Ballantyne, respectively. Loosely inserted in the last volume in this run is a printed slip uniquely identifying it as 'part of the Professor A D Hope Library'. [8 item].