COLIN STEELE reviews two books about writers, both revealing in different ways. 

Possibly one of Australia’s best-kept exhibition secrets in 2025 was Writers Revealed: Treasures from the British Library and National Portrait Gallery, London.

It was held at the Home of the Arts (HOTA) Gold Coast gallery between April 12 and August 3. 

The profusely illustrated hardback of the same title, edited by Alexandra Ault and Catharine MacLeod, (National Portrait Gallery and British Library $55), provides a permanent record of a stunning exhibition.

In late 2001, the National Library of Australia exhibition, Treasures from the World’s Great Libraries, proved so successful that, in the last days, people were queuing around the NLA block to get in. One wonders what the numbers would have been like if Writers Revealed had been held in Canberra.

Having said that, many congratulations are in order to HOTA to exhibiting rare manuscripts from the British Library (a few in facsimile), first editions from HOTA, and 70 stunning NPG portraits, offering an insight into the lives and works of some of history’s most influential English language writers, such as William Shakespeare, George Eliot, William Blake, the Brontë sisters, JRR Tolkien, Virginia Woolf, and contemporary writers such as Zadie Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro.

One of the items that didn’t make it to the exhibition was Jane Austen’s portable mahogany writing desk, held by the British Library. According to a HOTA guide, the desk was stopped by Australian customs from entering the country due to possible wood infestation.

The British Library understandably refused the Australian Customs’ physical testing of the wood, so the desk was returned to London. Austen fans took solace from viewing an unfinished watercolour of Jane by her sister Cassandra, sketched in 1810.

The exhibits were organised in five thematic sections or “chapters”: In Search of the Author, The Journey to Success, Suppression, Censorship and Secrecy, Fame and Writing to Change the World.

There are too many highlights to list, but they include Virginia Woolf’s handwritten manuscript for Mrs Dalloway; handwritten and illustrated letters from JRR Tolkien to his grandson that echo his work in The Lord of the Rings; a diary entry by Lewis Carroll discussing Alice in Wonderland; the printer’s manuscript of Wordsworth’s poem I wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Lord Byron’s sardonic dedication to archenemy Robert Southey from the original manuscript of Don Juan and the play script of Dracula, containing ink annotations by Bram Stoker in 1897.

The portraits accompanying the manuscripts and books provide superb visual companions. They included the only portrait painted of William Shakespeare during his lifetime; Augustus John’s portrait of Dylan Thomas and TS Eliot’s modernist portrait by Patrick Heron.

The anonymous portrait of John Milton as a Cambridge student was exhibited next to Milton’s 1667 agreement for Paradise Lost, which is the earliest surviving British contract between an author and publisher.

THE relationship between author and publisher was crucial in the books selected by the British Book Society between 1929 to 1969.

Before the Richard and Judy, Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon book clubs and Tik-Tok book influencers, there was Hugh Walpole and the Book Society, which British academic Nicola Wilson covers in an excellent survey, Recommended – The Influencers Who Changed How We Read (Holland House. $38.95).

Before the Book Society, readers had to rely on circulating or public libraries and personal book ownership was not common.

For 40 years, the judges panel of the Book Society, notably, in its first two decades, comprising Hugh Walpole, JB Priestley, Sylvia Lynd, Cecil Day-Lewis and Edmund Blunden, “literary influencers”, chose from the best of fact and fiction for subscribers in more than 30 countries.

Wilson juxtaposes their personal lives and interactions with the selections, which would arrive for subscribers wrapped in “Book Society Choice” yellow bands. The increased print runs from Book Society choices enabled prices to be reduced

Book Society publication enhanced the career of many authors including Graham Greene, whose publishing career was arguably rescued by the Book Society’s selection of Stamboul Train in 1932.

Books by Evelyn Waugh, CS Forester, Noël Coward, WH Auden, HG Wells and. Somerset Maugham are documented alongside many now long forgotten. Rosamond Lehmann, EM Delafield, Dorothy L Sayers, Rebecca West, Daphne du Maurier, Elizabeth Bowen, Dodie Smith, Nancy Mitford, Rose Macaulay and Mary McCarthy all featured in the female author selections.

One of the aims of the Book Society was to democratise knowledge and culture. With readers today impacted by digital alternatives and resulting limited attention spans, Recommended is a fascinating reminder of a different era of book buying and reading habits.