Springtime in Taranaki

Poet, dramatist, short-story writer and critic, Douglas Stewart was a highly influential literary figure. Born in New Zealand in 1913, he came to Australia in 1938 and was for twenty-one years literary editor of the Bulletin before he joined Angus & Robertson where he worked for twelve years as an editorial adviser. He is remembered both for his finely observed nature poetry and his verse dramas, including his most significant work The Fire on the Snow concerning Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition and which was written during his second year in Sydney. He also published a number of books of prose including a collection of short stories A Girl with Red Hair and other Stories (1944) and the non-fiction works The Seven Rivers (1966), Norman Lindsay: A personal memoir (1975), A Man of Sydney (1977) and Springtime in Taranaki (1983). Written in 1984, the year before he died, his last book Douglas Stewart's Garden of Friends about the garden he created with his wife artist Margaret Coen was published in 1987.