86 Facts About Patrick White

Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian novelist and playwright who explored themes of religious experience, personal identity and the conflict between visionary individuals and a materialistic, conformist society.

Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, the only Australian to have been awarded the literary prize.

Patrick White was sent to an English public school at the age of 13, and went on to read modern languages at Cambridge.

Patrick White's first published novel, Happy Valley, was awarded the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society.

Patrick White returned to Australia in 1948 where he bought a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney.

Patrick White's later work includes the novels The Eye of the Storm and The Twyborn Affair and the memoir Flaws in the Glass.

Patrick White was born in Knightsbridge, London, on 28 May 1912.

At the age of four Patrick White developed asthma, a condition that had taken the life of his maternal grandfather, and his health was fragile throughout his childhood.

Nevertheless, Patrick White felt closer to his nurse, Lizzie Clark, who taught him to tell the truth and "not blow his own trumpet".

Patrick White enjoyed the freedom provided by the school where discipline was lax.

Patrick White read widely from the school library, wrote a play and excelled at English.

In 1924 the boarding school ran into financial trouble, and the headmaster suggested that Patrick White be sent to a public school in England.

Patrick White found his housemaster to be sadistic and puritanical, and White's certitude of his own homosexuality increased his sense of isolation.

Patrick White became friends with Ronald Waterall who was two years his senior at Cheltenham and shared his passion for the theatre.

Patrick White asked his parents if he could leave school to become an actor.

Patrick White's parents compromised and allowed him to leave school without taking his final examinations if he came home to Australia to try life on the land.

In December 1929, Patrick White left Cheltenham and sailed to Sydney.

Patrick White spent two years working as a jackaroo on sheep stations at Bolaro in the Monaro district of New South Wales and at Barwon Vale in northern New South Wales.

Patrick White's mother was happy for him to become a writer but she wanted him to have a career as a diplomat as well.

From 1932, Patrick White lived in England, studying French and German literature at King's College, Cambridge.

Patrick White wrote poems, some of which were published in the London Mercury.

Patrick White spent his holidays in France and Germany to improve his languages and read Joyce, Lawrence, Proust, Flaubert, Stendhal and Thomas Mann with admiration.

Patrick White made a pilgrimage to Zennor in Cornwall where Lawrence wrote Women in Love and the visit inspired further poems.

Patrick White moved to London's Pimlico district where, in 1936, he met the Australian painter Roy de Maistre.

Patrick White began work on the novel Happy Valley, partly based on his experience working as a jackaroo.

Patrick White started work on a play, Return to Abyssinia, and wrote skits for revues which were produced with moderate success.

Patrick White completed Happy Valley and the novel was accepted by the British publisher George G Harrap and Company in 1938.

Happy Valley was published in early 1939 to generally favourable reviews which encouraged Patrick White to go to America to find a publisher there.

Patrick White visited Taos, New Mexico, where he viewed Lawrence's ashes and met Frieda Lawrence.

Patrick White then moved to Cape Cod where he worked on a novel, The Living and the Dead, partly based on his life in London.

In early 1940, Patrick White heard that Ben Huebsch, the head of the American publisher Viking, had accepted Happy Valley.

Huebsch had published Lawrence and Joyce in America and Patrick White was delighted with the connection to these writers.

Patrick White decided to travel back to New York for the publication of Happy Valley and to complete the new novel.

Patrick White was stationed at Bentley Priory during the Blitz before being transferred to North Africa in April 1941.

Patrick White sent the completed typescript to his American publisher in January 1947.

Patrick White missed its short season because he was in Australia making preparations for his permanent return.

Patrick White returned to London and began a new play, The Ham Funeral, inspired by the William Dobell painting "The Dead Landlord".

Patrick White sailed back to Australia in December 1947, and during his voyage The Aunt's Story was published in the United States to very favourable reviews and strong sales.

Patrick White named the house "Dogwoods", after trees he planted there.

The reviews of The Aunt's Story in the British and Australian press were less enthusiastic than those in America, and Patrick White was unable to interest theatres in Australia or overseas in producing The Ham Funeral.

Patrick White was making slow progress on the novel which was to become The Tree of Man and was discouraged at his prospects of success as a writer.

In late 1951, Patrick White had a religious experience that gave him a belief in God and the inspiration to recommence work on The Tree of Man.

Patrick White was embittered by what he considered a hostile critical response in Australia.

Patrick White gave few interviews and usually declined requests for public appearances, promotion of his work, and invitations for his membership of literary and cultural organisations.

Patrick White was inspired to write three further plays which were given professional productions: The Season at Sarsaparilla, A Cheery Soul and Night on Bald Mountain.

In 1963, Patrick White's mother died in London and his share of the estate allowed him to buy a house in Centennial Park, near the centre of Sydney, the following year.

Patrick White was working on The Solid Mandala, a novel about twins, Waldo and Arthur Brown, who represent contrary aspects of his own character.

Patrick White was becoming interested in Tarot, astrology, the I Ching and Jungian psychology, and these interests are reflected in the novel.

Patrick White was opposed to Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war, and in December 1969 he participated in his first political demonstration, breaking the law by publicly inciting young men not to register for military conscription.

Patrick White had been on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1969.

In 1970, Patrick White had begun working on a new novel, The Eye of the Storm, about the meaning of his mother's death.

Patrick White sent the completed work to his British publishers in December 1972.

Patrick White delayed sending it to his American publishers, Viking, because The Vivisector had sold poorly in America and he hoped positive reviews of the new work in Britain would increase interest in the United States.

The novel was published in August 1973 and Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October.

Patrick White, pleading delicate health, declined to travel to Sweden to accept the award.

Patrick White refused to have Happy Valley republished as he considered it an inferior early work and he was afraid that some of the people on whom characters were based might sue for defamation.

Patrick White wrote to the re-elected prime minister Gough Whitlam on the issue and the campaign eventually forced the government to suspend its approval of mining and hold an inquiry on the matter.

Patrick White was among the first group of the Companions of the Order of Australia in 1975 but resigned in June 1976 in protest against the dismissal of the Whitlam government in November 1975 by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr and the subsequent reintroduction of knighthoods as part of the order.

In November 1975, the young theatre director Jim Sharman approached Patrick White to discuss a revival of The Season at Sarsaparilla.

In 1976, Patrick White was working on a new novel, The Twyborn Affair, partly based on aspects of his own life and that of male Antarctic explorer Herbert Dyce-Murphy who had lived as a woman for several years.

In researching his novel, Patrick White revisited the regions of New South Wales where Patrick White had lived and worked as a youth, and significant locations in London, France and Greece.

The success of The Season at Sarsaparilla had inspired Patrick White to write his first play in over 12 years, Big Toys, about plutocracy and corruption in Sydney.

In October 1979, Patrick White started work on a memoir, Flaws in the Glass, in which he planned to write publicly for the first time about his homosexuality and his relationship with Manoly Lascaris.

Patrick White was encouraged to write a new play for Sharman, Netherwood, "about the sanity in insanity and the insanity in sanity".

The play premiered in Adelaide in May 1983 but attracted hostile reviews which Patrick White considered a deliberate media campaign to sabotage his work.

In late 1984, Patrick White was hospitalised due to osteoporosis, crumbled vertebrae and glaucoma resulting from his long-term use of cortisone to treat his asthma and chest infections.

Patrick White had recovered sufficiently by January 1985 to recommence work on a new novel, Memoirs of Many in One, which he described as a "religious" and "bawdy" novel about senility.

Patrick White boycotted the premiere because the festival had invited the Queen to attend.

Patrick White had written three short prose poems which were published as Three Uneasy Pieces in late 1987.

Patrick White was determined that none of his works would be published or performed in 1988 which was the bicentenary of British settlement in Australia.

In July 1990, Patrick White contracted pleurisy and suffered a bronchial collapse.

Patrick White later expressed regret over his complacency regarding European fascism.

Patrick White became involved in politics in 1969 when he joined protests against the Vietnam war and conscription of Australian troops for the conflict.

Patrick White supported Trade Union Green Bans against development proposals which threatened the urban environment.

Patrick White publicly supported the Australian Labor Party in the federal elections of 1972,1974 and 1975 despite a falling out with the prime minister Gough Whitlam over sand mining on Fraser Island.

Patrick White was a public supporter of Aboriginal self-determination and privately donated money towards Aboriginal education.

Academic Martin Thomas argues that Patrick White was acutely aware of his own privileged upbringing and this drove his later concern about social injustice.

Patrick White's first published novel, Happy Valley, received favourable reviews in Britain and Australia, although some critics noted that it was too derivative of Joyce, Lawrence and Woolf.

Katherine Brisbane states that the reception of Patrick White's plays has been ambivalent as they mix realism, expressionism and poetic and vernacular dialogue in a way which has challenged audiences and directors.

Marr, Williams and Kiernan state that Patrick White drew on various religious and mystical traditions in his work including Judaism, Jungian archetypes and gnosticism.

Williams argues that Patrick White's tendency for parody and playfulness become more prominent in later works such as The Twyborn Affair and Memoirs of Many in One.

Australian novelists influenced by Patrick White include Thomas Keneally, Thea Astley, Randolph Stow and Christopher Koch.

Novelist David Malouf states that Patrick White's "High Modernism" is a literary form that has become unfashionable but that this could change.

The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize which White founded in 1975 with the prize money from his Nobel prize.

Patrick White donated much of his own collection of Australian art to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Patrick White was offered a knighthood in 1970, but declined it.