A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

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This event seems to have broken a drought for Brady for the next year, 10 th June, he
married again – a New Zealander named Florence Bourke. Best man at the wedding
was well-known naturalist and historian A.H. Chisholm. He tells the rather droll story
of Brady’s casual intention to marry at a Registry Office but when a fellow fisherman
struck up a conversation, the couple were married in church, with the fishermanminister
officiating. This match meant a great deal to Brady, who had become
increasingly lonely since Norma’s death. Florrie, as he called her, shared his literary
interests as well as being adept at painting scenes in oils on scarves and handkerchiefs
which were sold to tourists when the couple later returned to Mallacoota. He
informed his relatives that “neither of us is of a social disposition and we are both
entirely interested in Art and literature and thought, books and culture generally. We
also like to live close to nature”. 1
Angus and Robertson rejected the Two Frontiers manuscript, the Chief Reader’s
report praising its straightforward style and “pleasant stream of anecdote” but
criticised its “lack of balance and proportion” and the direction of the reader’s interest
form the subject of the biography”. 2 Brady regained the book and sent it to another
publisher, Frank Johnson, who after much delay and with a great deal of acerbity from
Brady finally published it in 1944. 3 Brady wanted it to appear while there were so
many American soldiers in the country but it missed this deadline owing to
difficulties with paper, with the printing and one suspects, owing to the publisher’s
negligence.
Although Leslie Rubins had made himself unpopular with Brady for his failure to
fulfil a promise to buy the land at Mallacoota, the two began working together again.
Brady wrote another book on economic theory for Rubins, appearing in the credits as
“editor”. This was The Golden Key to Victory Peace and Prosperity; it neither
opened a door for Brady nor caused a ripple when thrown into the pool of public
indifference.
Of more importance was another volume which appeared in 1944 – Dreams and
Realities. 4 This book was in two parts – one written wholly by Brady and setting out
the kind of life lived by the Tobins, a pioneer family settling in the Gippsland region;
the second written by the authors together but mainly by Brady with the aid of
Rubins’ economic ideas, showed how a co-operative settlement “could be planned
and guided on higher planes of production, with increased rewards and greater
measures of comfort and security than Australians have hitherto enjoyed”. 5 During
the writing, Rubins paid him weekly with additional payment for other casual work.
Brady told Rubins that he had made his section “as lightly realistic as it could be
made for inclusion in a book with a serious purpose”.
In 1944 Brady again gained a Commonwealth Literary Fund Fellowship, using it to
write a biography of J.F. Archibald, a task he had earlier begun and laid aside. The
Fund however, gave no aid in publication, especially as it was still war-time. Brady
submitted the completed manuscript to Johnson, who agreed to publish it, but after
countless promises and excuses Brady despaired. He took legal action to regain the
manuscript and although submitted elsewhere, it was never published.
1
Brady to El Ella, 14.8.1944, in possession of Mrs. G. Jack.
2
Angus and Robertson to Brady, 5.11.1942, in National Library
3
Johnson paid Brady only sixty-one pounds, ten shillings and sixpence for his profit from this book,
an amount which Brady challenged.
4
York Press, Melbourne, 1944.
5
From the foreword to Dreams and Realities