Central Mischief Elizabeth Jolley 1992

Dustjacket synopsis:
"Elizabeth Jolley is one of Australia's most daring and entertaning writers. In Central Mischief, a collection of her articles, speeches and essays compiled by her literary agent Caroline Lurie, Elizabeth writes of her childhood in the industrial Midlands of England, the Quaker boarding school she attended, her experiences as a trainee nurse, and of migrating to Australia in the 1950s.

" Like her fiction, Central Mischief is amusing, penetrating and refreshingly honest and gives an insight into Elizabeth Jolley as a person."

Quotes:
"There is a dream-like quality about Elizabeth Jolley's writing...it compels the reader back to the past and to childhood, growing up, the security of family. There is that element, too, of uncertainty. What is around the bend in the road, what is below the bows of the ship?" - Jocelynne Scutt, Sunday Age
"Throughout Jolley's writings there is an overriding humanity and deep concern for people - for the simple, fundamental aspects of life." - Hamilton Smith, Canberra Times

Contents:
"'What Sins to Me Unkown Dipped Me in Ink...'"
"On War"
"A Father's Hand Carves a Lesson from the Butter"
"'Only Connect!' (Part 1)"
"Disorder and Early Sorrow
"My First Editor"
"Mr Berrington"
"Of Butchers and Bilberry Baskets"
"The Little Herb of Self-Heal"
"'Who Talks of Victory?'"
"Who Would Throw Streamers and Sing to a Container?"
"Tricked or Treated?"
"A Sort of Gift"
"'Only Connect!' (Part 2)"
"The Changing Family - Who Cares?"
"Decidedly Pointing to Central Mischief"
"The Inward Eye"
"Strange Regions There Are"
"The Habit of Art"
"Good Knight, Sweet Prince"
"Living on One Leg Like a Bird"
"I Had Forgotten the Long Light Evenings"
"The Most Wooden Macbeth"
"Four Trams on a Postcard"
"By the Waters of Babylon"
"The Goose Path: A Meditation"
"A Timid Conference"
"Dignity, Composure and Tranquillity in Old Age"
"What I Know Now"

From the Penguin paperback edition, 1993.

This page and its contents are copyright © 1998-2002 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: January 12, 2002.