Percival Serle (18 July 1871 – 16 December 1951) was an Australian biographer and

bibliographer Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...

Early life

Serle was born in

Elsternwick Elsternwick is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Glen Eira local government area. Elsternwick recorded a population of 10,887 at the 20 ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

to English parents who had migrated as children and for many years worked in a life assurance office before in November 1910 becoming chief clerk and accountant at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb ...

. He married artist Dora Beatrice Hake on 29 March 1910. They were to have three children. One son, Alan Geoffrey Serle, was selected as 1947 Victorian

Rhodes scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

. Serle ran a second-hand bookshop during the depression; was guide-lecturer at the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

; curator of the Art Museum of the Gallery; and member of the council of the

Victorian Artists Society The Victorian Artists Society, which can trace its establishment to 1856 in Melbourne, promotes artistic education, art classes and gallery hire exhibition in Australia. It was formed in March 1888 when the Victorian Academy of Arts (previously V ...

. He was also president of the Australian Literature Society.

Publications

Serle's publications included an edition, with notes, of ''A Song to David and Other Poems'' by the 18th-century English poet,

Christopher Smart Christopher Smart (11 April 1722 – 20 May 1771) was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines, ''The Midwife'' and ''The Student'', and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fiel ...

; ''A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse: Australia and New Zealand''; ''An Australasian Anthology'' (with ' Furnley Maurice' and R. H. Croll); ''A selection of Poems by Furnley Maurice''; ''

Dictionary of Australian Biography The ''Dictionary of Australian Biography'', published in 1949, is a reference work by Percival Serle containing information on notable people associated with Australian history. With approximately a thousand entries, the book took more than ...

''; and ''A Primer of Collecting''. The ''Dictionary'' took more than twenty years to complete and contains more than one thousand biographies of prominent Australians or persons closely connected with Australia. Serle comments in the Preface that "I have endeavoured to make the book worthy of its subject. It would have been better could I have spent another five years on it, but at seventy-five years of age one realizes there is a time to make an end." He was awarded the

Australian Literature Society Gold Medal The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (ALS Gold Medal) is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the ...

for 1949 for this work.

Nettie Palmer Janet Gertrude "Nettie" Palmer (née Higgins) (18 August 1885 – 19 October 1964) was an Australian poet, essayist and Australia's leading literary critic of her day. She corresponded with women writers and collated the Centenary Gift Book which ...

Letters
''

The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...

'', 7 November 1949, p. 2. Retrieved 4 May 2018. Serle died in

Hawthorn Hawthorn or Hawthorns may refer to: Plants * '' Crataegus'' (hawthorn), a large genus of shrubs and trees in the family Rosaceae * ''Rhaphiolepis'' (hawthorn), a genus of about 15 species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the family Rosace ...

, Victoria, aged 80 on 16 December 1951.

Notes

References

*''The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature'' (Second Edition, 1994). *Geoffrey Serle,
Serle, Percival (1871–1951)
, ''

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

'', Volume 11, MUP, 1988, pp 567–569.

External links

Dictionary of Australian Biography (1949)
courtesy of

Project Gutenberg Australia Project Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. It is a sister site of Project Gutenberg, though there is no formal relationship between the two organizations. The site hosts free eboo ...

(written by Serle, contains details of people who died before 1942). {{DEFAULTSORT:Serle, Percival 1871 births 1951 deaths People educated at Scotch College, Melbourne Australian biographers Australian bibliographers Male biographers Australian booksellers Australian people of English descent Writers from Melbourne ALS Gold Medal winners University of Melbourne people People from Elsternwick, Victoria