 First edition | |
| Author | Martin Boyd |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Langton Tetralogy |
| Publisher | Abelard-Schuman, London |
Publication date | 1962 |
| Media type | Print Hardback & Paperback |
| Pages | 256 pp |
| Preceded by | Outbreak of Love |
| Followed by | – |
When Blackbirds Sing (1962) is the last novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It is also the last in the author's "Langton Tetralogy" (which comprises The Cardboard Crown , A Difficult Young Man , Outbreak of Love and When Blackbirds Sing). [1]
During World War I Dominic Langton leaves his wife and child behind in Australia and travels to England to enlist in the army. While there he comes to know his English family roots for the first time and is initially seduced by the show of class and privilege. But his experiences in the war gradually change his attitudes, and he finally returns to Australia a very changed man.
Maurice Dunlevy, in a re-examination of the whole tetralogy after it had been re-issued in 1971 by Lansdowne Press, wrote: "Throughout his career Boyd had been wrestling with the conflict between writing a family saga in a form that might be called a schematic fable — the Jamesian novel of total relevance. The sweep required by the saga did not adapt easily to the narrow, more rigid unity of the aesthetically patterned novel and the final attempt to write the, saga as a sequence of self-contained novels was hampered by the necessity to convey the amplitude of the saga in the confines of schematic pattern. "When Blackbirds Sing" seems to be more successful because it throws out almost the whole Langton family and concentrates on the troubled consciousness and feelings of a single member, Dominic Langton, who is the hero not of a saga wedded to the novel of psychological realism, but of the latter alone." [2]
Reviewing the 2014 release from Text in Southerly Shaun Bell notes: "Difficult to define in terms of genre and uneasily placed in canonical formations, the expected and characteristic nostalgia in Boyd’s treatment of a belated anglo-Australianism aligned with British colonialism is curiously absent. The finale of four books, the novel conversely sees Boyd at his most politically engaged and focused on his own time...By the end of Boyd’s Langton novels, Dominic becomes something of a tragic figure. Grappling with surges of violent emotion, traumatising visions of the past, homesickness, ennui, and depression, Dominic is once again in danger of being torn apart by his warring emotions." [3]
Text Publishing re-issued the novel in 2014 as part of its Text Classics series with an introduction by Brenda Niall. [4]
Henry VI, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas Henry VI, Part 1 deals primarily with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict, 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, the death of his trusted adviser Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the rise of the Duke of York and the inevitability of armed conflict. As such, the play culminates with the opening battle of the War, the First Battle of St Albans (1455).
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A book series is a sequence of books having certain characteristics in common that are formally identified together as a group. Book series can be organized in different ways, such as written by the same author, or marketed as a group by their publisher.
Australian literature is the written or literary work produced in the area or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. During its early Western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies; as such, its recognised literary tradition begins with and is linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, the narrative art of Australian writers has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent into literature—exploring such themes as Aboriginality, mateship, egalitarianism, democracy, national identity, migration, Australia's unique location and geography, the complexities of urban living, and "the beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.
A Pocket Full of Rye is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 9 November 1953, and in the US by Dodd, Mead & Co. the following year. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6) and the US edition at $2.75. The book features her detective Miss Marple.
Martin à Beckett Boyd was an Australian writer born into the à Beckett–Boyd family, a family synonymous with the establishment, the judiciary, publishing and literature, and the visual arts since the early 19th century in Australia.
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The Wars of the Roses was a 1963 theatrical adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy, which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. The plays were adapted by John Barton, and directed by Barton and Peter Hall at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The production starred David Warner as Henry VI, Peggy Ashcroft as Margaret of Anjou, Donald Sinden as the Duke of York, Paul Hardwick as the Duke of Gloucester, Janet Suzman as Joan la Pucelle, Brewster Mason as the Earl of Warwick, Roy Dotrice as Edward IV, Susan Engel as Queen Elizabeth and Ian Holm as Richard III.
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The Madeleine Heritage (1928) is a novel by Australian author Martin Boyd. It won the ALS Gold Medal in 1928.
A Difficult Young Man (1955) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It is the second in the author's "Langton Tetralogy" and it won the ALS Gold Medal in 1957.
Outbreak of Love (1957) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It is the third in the author's "Langton Tetralogy".
Seven Poor Men of Sydney (1934) is the first novel by Australian writer Christina Stead.
The Fear (1965) is a novel by Australian writer Thomas Keneally. The novel is also known by the title By the Line.
The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (1965) is a novel by Australian writer Randolph Stow.
The Cardboard Crown (1952) is a novel by Australian writer Martin Boyd. It is the first in the author's "Langton Tetralogy".
Such Pleasure (1949) is a novel by the Australian writer Martin Boyd.
The Chantic Bird (1968) is the debut novel by Australian writer David Ireland.