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[Private Lives Revealed ...]

Private Lives Revealed: Letters, Diaries, History

23 March 1996

What is discovered when private lives are revealed? An eyewitness account of history? Hidden voices or lives concealed? Forgotten truths or fabrications? Lives lived outside the public record? The personal, the private, puts flesh on history's bones, giving us other perspectives, other truths. The National Library of Australia presented this seminar to explore the use of, and ethical considerations of, using private or personal papers in researching history and biography. The Library's Manuscript Collection is a rich repository of the personal papers of prominent Australians.

The papers from the Private Lives Revealed seminar were published in the Autumn 1997 issue of Voices, the penultimate issue of the National Library of Australia's quarterly journal, (orders can be placed at the National Library of Australia Shop) and are reproduced at the National Library of Australia's Online Seminars.)

Those interested in this seminar topic may also enjoy the National Library's publications With Fond Regards: Private Lives through Letters edited and introduced by Elizabeth Riddell, and A Woman of Courage: The Journal of Rose de Freycinet on her Voyage around the World 1817-1820 translated and edited by Marc Serge Rivière and My Darling Mick: The Life and Times of Granville Ryrie. (Order from the Shop)

Note: Katie Holmes's paper on diary writing for the Women Writing seminar is also relevant to the topics of the Private Lives Revealed Seminar, and was published in the Autumn 1997 Voices.

Speakers:

  • Chris Tiffin / Private Letters and the Fortunate Voyeur
  • Patricia Clark / Life Lines19th Century Women's Diaries and Letters
  • Peter Read / Private Papers and a Sense of Belonging
  • John Thompson / Windows on to Australia
  • David Marr / Only What's Private Matters

Archivist Michael Piggott wrote a review of this seminar in Archives and Manuscripts Vol. 24(1), 1996.


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