 | |
| Author | Elizabeth Jolley |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
Publication date | 1983 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 226 pp. |
| ISBN | 014006656X |
| Preceded by | Miss Peabody's Inheritance |
| Followed by | Milk and Honey |
Mr Scobie's Riddle (1983) is a novel by Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley. It was originally published by Penguin Books in Australia in 1983. [1]
Mr Scobie is admitted to a nursing home which is ruled over by the domineering Matron Hyacinth Price.
Writing in The Canberra Times Lyn Frost noted that the novel "is a much looked-for new novel by one of Australia's most original authors. Once more she has turned her attention to the elderly...Wry, moving humour." [2]
Lucy Frost reviewed the novel for The Australian Book Review and stated: "Jolley’s compassion for the people who ordinarily slide by without attention has always given her fiction a special kind of gentleness...It is the edge created by comedy when the distorted in life evokes laughter rather than tears. The cumulative effect of the laughter in situations which are not intrinsically funny is to create a sense of unease in the reader. The distortions are funny, but they are also distortions and as such threaten to become sinister." [3]
After its original publication in 1983 in Australia by publisher Penguin Books [4] the novel was later published as follows:
The novel was also translated into Italian in 2014. [1]
The novel won the Age Book of the Year Imaginative Writing Prize in 1983. [6]
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Monica Elizabeth Jolley AO was an English-born Australian writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s and forged an illustrious literary career there. She was 53 when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels, four short story collections and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well-known writers such as Tim Winton among her students at Curtin University.
The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the Australian Literature Society, then from 1983 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, when the two organisations were merged.
The Age Book of the Year Awards were annual literary awards presented by Melbourne's The Age newspaper. The awards were first presented in 1974. After 1998, they were presented as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Initially, two awards were given, one for fiction, the other for non-fiction work, but in 1993, a poetry award in honour of Dinny O'Hearn was added. The criteria were that the works be "of outstanding literary merit and express Australian identity or character," and be published in the year before the award was made. One of the award-winners was chosen as The Age Book of the Year. The awards were discontinued in 2013.
The Well Dressed Explorer (1962) is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author Thea Astley. This novel shared the award with The Cupboard Under the Stairs by George Turner.
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Milk and Honey (1984) is a novel by Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley. It was originally published by Fremantle Press in Australia in 1984.
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My Father's Moon (1989) is a novel by Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley. It was originally published by Viking in Australia in 1989.
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