Two Bibliographies : Hal Porter and Patrick White

Abstract

The new series of 'Bibliographies of Australian Writers' recently launched by the Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide, is one that could be very useful indeed, and the idea deserves to be applauded. The series has commenced with bibliographies of Hal Porter and Patrick White. Any substantial bibliography offers so many problems that comprehensiveness and total accuracy are rarely achieved, nor are they to be expected as researchers should come to learn. Still, a possible, if imprecise, means of assessment may be to try to establish whether a bibliography displays the care and thoroughness which is as much as one could reasonably expect, though it may fall short of perfection, or whether it seems on a fair sampling to fall below this requirement. This criticism must be more carefully applied to a 'bibliography' than say to a 'checklist' or 'select bibliography', which are more modest in scope. The following comments on omissions and inaccuracies are not offered in disparagement of the new series, but are meant to be a constructive and supplementary aid to readers and students of Porter and White, and a possible help to the compilers in any future reprintings and in their extending of the series to other writers.