Given NameJohn Le GayLast NameBreretonDate of Birth02/09/1871Date of Death02/02/1933Biography
Family: Father, John Le Gay Brereton, medical practitioner, minor poet, leading member of the Swedenborgian community; Mother, Mary Tongue. Parents arrived in Melbourne on the Dover Castle 25 July 1859 and moved to Sydney. 1882 family moved to "Osgathorpe", Gladesville
Married: Laura Winifred Odd, 21 December 1900
Education: 1881 Sydney Grammar School; 1894 BA (University of Sydney)
Career: Early 1890s began writing seriously as editor of the University of Sydney student magazine Hermes Tried various occupations to schoolteacher, tea merchant, clerk in the NSW government statisticians office to and continued to write and became friendly with Henry Lawson and Christopher Brennan A mystic pantheist, vegetarian, lover of mountains and streams, regarded himself as a brother of birds and trees. 1902 to 1915 Assistant librarian, University of Sydney (under titular librarian H.E. Barff); assisted government architect, W.L. Vernon, on the design of the University's first permanent library building (MacLaurin Hall); expanded library holdings; systematised catalogue. 1907 joined Casuals Club; moved in literary and artistic circles; encouraged young writers and artists 1915 to 1921 University Librarian 1921 to ? Professor of English Literature 1923 foundation member of the Engish Association 1929 first president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers 1931 organiser, Sydney P.E.N. Club
Publications: (cf. Fisher Library catalogue) Landlopers : the tale of a drifting travel, and the quest of pardon and peace, William Brooks & Co., Sydney, 1899 Elizabethan Drama: notes and studies, 1909 Articles on Shakespeare and Marlowe in learned journals Lusts dominion, critical edition sent to the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, 1914, eventually published in 1931 after being lost during WW1 in the German invasion of Belgium Knocking round, 1930
Poems: (cf. Fisher Library catalogue) The song of brotherhood and other verses, George Allen, London, 1896 Sea and Sky, 1908 The burning marl, 1915 Swags up!, J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1928 [Letchworth (Hartfordshire): Temple Press]
