Douglas Stewart

Douglas Stewart was the leading man of letters in the Australia of his day. His life and work are of particular significance for the cultural phase that extended from the 1930s to the late 1960s, and constitute a central point for the study of Australian literary life and its intersections during that period. Stewart was probably the last of his kind in Australia.

Poet, dramatist, short story writer, editor and critic, Stewart was the editor of The Red Page of the Bulletin from 1940 to 1960, a page brought into Australian literary importance by the work of A.G. Stephens and the many others who appeared there for the first time—a journal which, incidentally, appealed much to D.H. Lawrence during his Australian sojourn and which he featured in Kangaroo (1923). Throughout his writing life, Stewart was also associated with the publishing house of Angus & Robertson, and from 1960 until his retirement worked there as a reader and commissioning editor. He promoted its annual series of…