JANA VERHOEVEN, Foreword
PATRICIA CLANCY, Céleste de Chabrillan’s One-Act Comedy, En Australie
This article introduces the translation by Dennis Davison of Céleste de Chabrillan’s play about Melbourne in 1853, En Australie, originally performed and published in Paris in 1862. It recounts the life of Céleste, a former courtesan and wife of the first French Consul to Melbourne, who used her first-hand experience of the Victorian gold-rush of the 1850s to write a novel, Les Voleurs d’or, which later became a successful play on the Parisian stage. Although En Australie is a minor work – it was mainly created to serve as a vehicle for Chabrillan’s vaudeville acting – it represents an interesting contemporary French perspective on gold rush Australia.
Keywords: Céleste de Chabrillan, En Australie, Victorian gold-rush
FIONNUALA BHREATHNACH, Australia in Toulouse: History of a Book Collection
This article records the history of the Australian book collection at the University of Toulouse (Université de Toulouse Le Mirail), the biggest collection of its kind in France. The author, who is the Librarian in charge of the Bibliothèque Études du Monde Anglophone & Sciences du Langage in that university, also provides an insight into the development of Australian studies in French universities.
Keywords: University of Toulouse Le Mirail, Centre du Commonwealth, Victor Dupont, Xavier Pons, Cultures Anglo-Saxonnes (CAS),
ANTHONY MARSHALL, An Australian (or Two) in Paris
Melbourne bookseller Anthony Marshall provides a personal perspective on recent Australian publications dealing with cross-cultural (French-Australian) experiences. The article features both a light-hearted survey of books reflecting the fascination of Australians with things French, and some entertaining anecdotes about his twenty year marriage to a Frenchwoman and his interaction with her family.
Keywords: Australian francophilia, Mary Moody, Sarah Turnbull, John Baxter, Elaine Lewis, bookselling