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Agnes Littlejohn

{{Short description|Australian writer}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}{{Use Australian English|date=August 2021}}

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| occupation = Poet, short story writer, children's author

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| death_place = Epping, New South Wales, Australia

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1944|12|27|1865|09|25|df=y}}

| birth_place = Paddington, New South Wales, Australia

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1865|09|25|df=y}}

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Agnes Littlejohn (25 September 1865 – 27 December 1944) was an Australian writer.

Life

Agnes Littlejohn was born in Paddington, New South Wales on 25 September 1865.{{cite news|date=30 September 1865|title=Family Notices|volume=LII|page=1|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|issue=8537|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31125463|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}} Her Scottish father, Thomas Littlejohn (d.1906) and his wife Ann Austin Littlejohn (née Orsmond in Tahiti) had migrated to Australia in 1864.{{cite news|date=27 January 1906|title=Topics for the Block|volume=LXXX|page=46|newspaper=The Australasian|issue=2078|location=Victoria, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article139191403|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

Littlejohn had paintings in the Australian Academy of Arts Exhibition in 1892.{{cite news|date=2 July 1892|title=Academy of Arts|page=5|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|issue=16,936|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13844523|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

Her first collection of short stories was published in 1907, the year following her father's death, and was reviewed favourably by The Sydney Morning Herald.{{cite news|date=20 July 1907|title=Notes|page=4|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|issue=21,686|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14841295|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}} It contained both new stories and others which had previously been published in the Presbyterian.{{cite news|date=20 July 1907|title=Literature|page=9|newspaper=The Australian Star|issue=6143|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229496779|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}} From November 1907 her stories appeared in the "Young Folks" and "Australian Stories" columns of The Sydney Mail.{{cite news|date=27 November 1907|title=Young Folks|volume=LXXXIV|page=1406|newspaper=The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser|issue=2403|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article163660750|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}{{cite news|date=29 July 1908|title=Critics|volume=LXXXVI|page=301|newspaper=The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser|issue=2438|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article165397899|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

Following the outbreak of World War I, Littlejohn began writing patriotic poetry which was published in The Sydney Mail.{{cite news|date=27 January 1915|title=Unrest|volume=VI|page=30|newspaper=Sydney Mail|issue=148|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166254956|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}{{cite news|date=3 February 1915|title=For the Cause|volume=VI|page=27|newspaper=Sydney Mail|issue=149|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166254734|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}{{cite news|date=17 February 1915|title=Goodbye!|volume=VI|page=34|newspaper=Sydney Mail|issue=151|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166255832|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}} It was collected and re-published in a series of volumes during the war years. She also donated earnings from her writing to patriotic funds.{{cite news|date=15 November 1914|title=An Appeal From Rabaul|page=5|newspaper=Sunday Times|issue=1504|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126754194|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}{{cite news|date=30 June 1915|title=For Our Wounded Soldiers|volume=VII|page=32|newspaper=Sydney Mail|issue=170|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article166254423|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

Her first book of fairy stories for children, Star Dust and Sea Spray, appeared in 1918 and was illustrated by Sydney Ure Smith and Percy Leason,{{cite news|date=27 April 1918|title=Miscellaneous|page=8|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|issue=25,057|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15769196|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}} while Pixie O'Harris illustrated her 1924 book, The Lost Emerald and other Stories.{{cite news|date=25 October 1924|title=Recent Publications|page=20|newspaper=The Advertiser|location=South Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43245356|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

She also wrote the lyrics for the song, "To a Butterfly", composed by Raimund Pechotsch in 1925.{{Cite web|last=|title=To A Butterfly: Song|url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C551153|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-17|website=AustLit: Discover Australian Stories|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210817064027/https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C551153 |archive-date=17 August 2021 }} It was dedicated to and sung by Elsa Stralia.{{cite news|date=21 May 1925|title="To a Butterfly"|volume=LXXV|page=15|newspaper=Freeman's Journal|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article116792832|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

In 1931 she began to write poetry for The Sydney Morning Herald.{{cite news|date=21 February 1931|title=Sleep, Little Babe|page=9|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|issue=29,058|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16756261|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

Works

= Prose =

  • The Daughter of a Sailor and other stories (1907){{cite news|date=18 July 1907|title=The Bookworm's Corner|volume=LVIII|page=19|newspaper=Freeman's Journal|issue=3573|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108038654|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}
  • A Lapse of Memory and other stories (1909)
  • Mirage of the Desert (1910)
  • The Breath of India (1914)
  • The Silver Road and other stories (1915)
  • Star Dust and Sea Spray (1918)
  • Rainbow Dreams (1919)
  • The Lost Emerald and other Stories (1924)
  • The Pipes O' Pan and other short stories (1939)

= Poetry =

  • Verses (1914)
  • Patriotic Poems (1915)
  • Verses (1915)
  • War Poems, dedicated to Australian soldiers (1916)
  • The Lady of the Doves and other poems (1929)
  • The Guardian of the Gate and other poems (1933)
  • The Unforgotten Watch and other poems (1935)
  • Drowsy Hours and other poems (1936)
  • Lighthouse Keepers and other poems (1938)

= Prose and poetry =

  • The Sleeping Sea-Nymph (1921)
  • Lyrics and Lyrical Prose (1927)
  • Lyrics and Mystic Sketches (1928)

Later life and death

Littlejohn died on 27 December 1944 at a private hospital in Epping, New South Wales.{{cite news|date=29 December 1944|title=Family Notices|page=8|newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald|issue=33,390|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17933343|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}} She never married.{{cite news|date=7 December 1945|title=RE will of Agnes Littlejohn, late of Epping, spinster|page=2306|newspaper=Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales|issue=131|location=New South Wales, Australia|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222033117|via=National Library of Australia|accessdate=17 August 2021}}

References

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Category:1865 births

Category:1944 deaths

Category:20th-century Australian women writers

Category:Writers from New South Wales

Category:Australian people of Scottish descent

Category:20th-century Australian poets

Category:Colony of New South Wales people

Category:Australian women poets