C.J.Dennis Book

[Neville Briggs]

I was watching on the TV to-day a program on the ABC called The Collectors.
A person had sent them a book for valuation, it was a 1956 edition of The Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis.
The presenter said that this book would normally be worth about $20, but this one had been owned by Vance Palmer and in the front of the book was an original drawing by Hal Gye depicting C.J.Dennis and Hal Gye as caricatures. Hal Gye was the original illustrator for C.J.Dennis books.
The ABC presenter, Claudia Chan Shaw, estimated the value of the book as $1500. Not bad for an old bush poetry book.

[keats]

And just for the record, Nev, who is Vance Palmer?

Ta

Neil

[Neville Briggs]

Vance Palmer and his wife Nettie were prominent literary figures in Australia from 1920s to 1950s. Politically, very far left wing.

The Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction is called The Vance Palmer Prize. $30,000 if you win that one.

Amongst his work Vance Palmer wrote bush poems, Song of The Old Boundary Rider, The Road to Roma Jail are two of them I am informed.

[keats]

Thanks Neville, sorry for my ignorance. I will look him up and read up on him. Sounds like an interesting bloke.

Thanks

Neil