Charmian Clift's Books

Sneaky Little Revolutions

Selected Essays of Charmian Clift

By: Charmian Clift

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Sneaky Little Revolutions

Selected Essays of Charmian Clift

By: Charmian Clift

I know it's a daring suggestion, but I'll make it anyway.' Charmian Clift was a writer ahead of her time. Lyrical and fearless, her essays seamlessly blended the personal and the political. In 1964, Charmian Clift and her husband George Johnston returned to Australia after living and writing for many years in the cosmopolitan community of artists on the Greek island of Hydra. Back in Sydney, Clift found her opinions were far more progressive than those of many of her fellow Australians. This new edition of Charmian Clift's essays, selected and introduced by her biographer Nadia Wheatley, is drawn from the weekly newspaper column Clift wrote through the turbulent and transformative years of the 1960s. In these 'sneaky little revolutions', as Clift once called them, she supported the rights of women and migrants, called for social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, opposed conscription and the war in Vietnam, acknowledged Australia's role in the Asia-Pacific, fought censorship, called for a local film industry -- and much more. In doing so, she set a new benchmark for the form of the essay in Australian literature. 'My regard for Charmian Clift veers uncomfortably close to veneration, which appals me. The figure of Clift as a messy morality tale about what happens when you run off to be a writer comes at the expense of the work she produced, which is to the contrary searing in its clarity. This collection is a reminder of the work behind the legend: her bent, her conviction, and her cool. And the sentences! Clift's essays evince an ardent attention to life in all its vagaries, which is really the most a person can give.' -- Ellena Savage, author of Blueberries 'Charmian Clift was ahead of her time and yet also representative of them. Her essays are a fascinating, thoughtful - sometimes judgemental, sometimes lyrical - window into an Australia on the brink of change. Whether you always agree with her opinions or not, she writes like a dream and her voice is wry, insightful and self-aware. It is lovely to see her gaining the recognition she has long deserved.' -- Jane Caro, Walkley Award winning columnist and author 'When I first stumbled on Clift's essays, twenty or more years ago, these trashy essays written for a disposable occasion seemed to me to have more lightning and quicksilver, more brilliance and more skill of execution, than any Australian writing other than the great novels of Patrick White and Christina Stead.' -- Peter Craven, Sydney Morning Herald 'Reading these essays, it's easy to see why Clift became a cult figure. The chatty, charming and sometimes slightly dippy persona distracts attention just enough from the steely intelligence, the sophisticated sentence structure and the passion for causes that characterise these pieces but might otherwise rather have alarmed her readers ... In an era that hadn't yet thought too much about these things, her columns demonstrated that a woman ... could and should be an active citizen of the world.' -- Kerryn Goldsworthy, Australian Book Review 'From the women's pages of the Sydney Morning Herald, among advertisements for wrinkle cream and mini-skirts ... Clift challenged a complacent society, fashioned a sly and elegant sedition: opposing Vietnam, unmasking materialism, championing equality for women.' -- Mark Tredinnick, The Book Bulletin

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Page Count

480

Publisher

NewSouth

Published Date

ISBN 10

1742237444

ISBN 13

9781742237442

Mermaid Singing

By: Charmian Clift

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Mermaid Singing

By: Charmian Clift

In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing The result is Charmian Clift's best known and most loved books, Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus. Mermaid Singing relays the culture shock and the sheer delight of their first year on the tiny sponge-fishing island of Kalymnos. Clift paints an evocative picture of the characters and sun-drenched rhythms of traditional life, long before backpackers and mass tourism descended. On Hydra, featured in the companion volume, Peel Me a Lotus, Clift and Johnston became the centre of an informal community of artists and writers including the then unknown Leonard Cohen who lodged with them, and his future girlfriend Marianne Ihlen.

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Page Count

262

Publisher

Muswell Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1838110151

ISBN 13

9781838110154

Being Alone with Oneself

By: Charmian Clift

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Being Alone with Oneself

By: Charmian Clift

The last of the author's unanthologised writing from her weekly column in the TSydney Morning Herald' and the Melbourne THerald' of the 1960s. Covers various aspects of the changing face of Australia. By the author of TMermaid Singing', TPeel Me a Lotus', THonour's Mimic', TImages in Aspic' and TThe World of Charmain Clift'.

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Page Count

333

Published Date

ISBN 10

0207166234

ISBN 13

9780207166235

Peel Me a Lotus

By: Charmian Clift

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Peel Me a Lotus

By: Charmian Clift

In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing The result is Charmian Clift's best known and most loved books, Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus. Peel Me a Lotus, the companion volume to Mermaid Singing relates their move to Hydra where they bought a house and grappled with the chaos of domestic life whilst becoming the centre of an informal bohemian community of artists and writers. That group included Leonard Cohen, who became their lodger, and his girlfriend Marianne Ihlen. Clift paints an evocative picture of the characters and sun-drenched rhythms of traditional life, long before backpackers and mass tourism descended.

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Page Count

227

Publisher

Muswell Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1838110143

ISBN 13

9781838110147

The End of the Morning

By: Charmian Clift

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The End of the Morning

By: Charmian Clift

The never-before-published novel by Charmian Clift. ‘In those days the end of the morning was always marked by the quarry whistle blowing the noon knock-off. Since everybody was out of bed very early, morning then was a long time, or even, if you came to think about it, a round time — symmetrical anyway, and contained under a thin, radiant, dome shaped cover…’ During the years of the Great Depression, Cressida Morley and her eccentric family live in a weatherboard cottage on the edge of a wild beach. Outsiders in their small working-class community, they rant and argue and read books and play music and never feel themselves to be poor. Yet as Cressida moves beyond childhood, she starts to outgrow the place that once seemed the centre of the world. As she plans her escape, the only question is: who will she become? The End of the Morning is the final and unfinished autobiographical novel by Charmian Clift. Published here for the first time, it is the book that Clift herself regarded as her most significant work. Although the author did not live to complete it, the typescript left among her papers was fully revised and stands alone as a novella. It is published here alongside a new selection of Clift’s essays and an afterword from her biographer Nadia Wheatley. ‘The End of the Morning is full of feeling, animated by that formless, aching questioning of childhood, and a fascinating glimpse of the forces that shaped Clift as a person and a writer.’ — Fiona Wright ‘Reading her, even a glimpsed paragraph of her, is like quaffing the finest champagne on earth.’ — Peter Craven, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Forthright, funny and with an indefinable flair, Charmian Clift’s writing plays second fiddle to nobody.’ — Richard Cotter, Sydney Arts Guide

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Page Count

202

Publisher

NewSouth

Published Date

ISBN 10

1742238920

ISBN 13

9781742238920

Trouble in Lotus Land

By: Charmian Clift,Nadia Wheatley

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Trouble in Lotus Land

By: Charmian Clift,Nadia Wheatley

A companion volume to two earlier collections of Charmian Clift's essays, TImages in Aspic' and TThe World of Charmian Clift'. Her essays, written while a columnist for the TSMH', include topical, controversial observations. 1964-1967.

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Page Count

319

Publisher

North Ryde, NSW, Australia : Angus & Robertson

Published Date

ISBN 10

0207166226

ISBN 13

9780207166228

Images in Aspic

By: Charmian Clift

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Images in Aspic

By: Charmian Clift

After spending 14 years living on a Greek island, the author returned to Australia and began writing a weekly newspaper column which quickly became popular. This publication is a selection of those pieces. First published in 1965, this third edition has been published in Australia.

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Page Count

148

Published Date

ISBN 10

0207174938

ISBN 13

9780207174933

Mermaid Singing

By: Charmian Clift

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Mermaid Singing

By: Charmian Clift

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Page Count

262

Publisher

Muswell Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1838110151

ISBN 13

9781838110154

The Sea and the Stone

By: Charmian Clift,George Johnson

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The Sea and the Stone

By: Charmian Clift,George Johnson

A POWERFUL NOVEL OF ELEMENTAL LOVE AND FURY ON A DOOMED, ENCHANTED ISLAND WORLD.... In the cradle of civilization, rocked by the waters of the blue Aegean, lies the tiny, barren island of Kalymnos. It is cloaked in antiquity and rich with the vibrant life of a proud and passionate people who have stubbornly endured the ravages of man and nature for three thousand years. And yet Kalymnos is dying, its means of survival crushed beneath the juggernaut of progress. Here is a moving story of this doomed, enchanted island, of a strong man and a strange, haunting woman who lived there, of a tormented girl who fled there, and of a wanderer who came, seeking... It is a story of unique power and simple splendor, a fiction rooted deep in truth. “...stirring...It is an elemental story of the raging sea and the rocky land, of the fundamental urges of man and woman...a story of great beauty and surging excitement...”—Boston Herald “...what they have seen, heard, felt in Kalymnos...make a vivid story, written as modern painters paint, not lingeringly, nor sentimentally, but with great splashes of significant color...”—New York Herald Tribune “...a lyrical and rugged account...of a virile race, almost pure descendants from the men who once sent their war galleys to ancient Troy...”—Springfield Republican “...a powerful and sad, beautifully written tale.”—Newark News “This is stark, brutal fiction based on fact. The dynamic, incisive and beautiful prose is worthy of a Hemingway...”—Grand Rapids Herald “Kalymnos as a place is most effectively presented, with a fine feeling for wind and weather, sea and sky, and a sustained brightness of natural detail. Also, the collective life of the islanders is very convincingly treated, with understanding and concern.”—Chicago Tribune “...superb...It paints murals of truth...”—Saturday Review

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Page Count

472

Publisher

Pickle Partners Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

178720992X

ISBN 13

9781787209923

Peel Me a Lotus

By: Charmian Clift

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Peel Me a Lotus

By: Charmian Clift

In 1951 the Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston left grey, post-war London for Greece. Settling first on the tiny island of Kalymnos, then Hydra, their plan was to live simply and focus on their writing The result is Charmian Clift's best known and most loved books, Mermaid Singing and Peel Me a Lotus. Peel Me a Lotus, the companion volume to Mermaid Singing relates their move to Hydra where they bought a house and grappled with the chaos of domestic life whilst becoming the centre of an informal bohemian community of artists and writers. That group included Leonard Cohen, who became their lodger, and his girlfriend Marianne Ihlen. Clift paints an evocative picture of the characters and sun-drenched rhythms of traditional life, long before backpackers and mass tourism descended.

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Age

Page Count

227

Publisher

Muswell Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1838110143

ISBN 13

9781838110147

New Selected Essays

By: Charmian Clift

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New Selected Essays

By: Charmian Clift

A selection of the essays Charmian Clift wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald during the 1960s.

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Page Count

408

Publisher

HarperPerennial

Published Date

ISBN 10

0732268877

ISBN 13

9780732268879

Strong-man from Piraeus and Other Stories

By: George Henry Johnston,Charmian Clift

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Strong-man from Piraeus and Other Stories

By: George Henry Johnston,Charmian Clift

Stories deal with a disabled child, a devoted lover, a theft from a shrine, a manipulative artist, a new house, and a crew of divers

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Page Count

192

Publisher

Penguin Group USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0140087982

ISBN 13

9780140087987

The Sea and the Stone

By: Charmian Clift,George Johnson

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The Sea and the Stone

By: Charmian Clift,George Johnson

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Page Count

472

Publisher

Pickle Partners Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

178720992X

ISBN 13

9781787209923

Book's by Charmian Clift

Sneaky Little Revolutions

Sneaky Little Revolutions

Mermaid Singing

Mermaid Singing

Being Alone with Oneself

Being Alone with Oneself

Peel Me a Lotus

Peel Me a Lotus

The End of the Morning

The End of the Morning

Trouble in Lotus Land

Trouble in Lotus Land

Images in Aspic

Images in Aspic

Mermaid Singing

Mermaid Singing

The Sea and the Stone

The Sea and the Stone

Peel Me a Lotus

Peel Me a Lotus

New Selected Essays

New Selected Essays

Strong-man from Piraeus and Other Stories

Strong-man from Piraeus and Other Stories

The Sea and the Stone

The Sea and the Stone

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