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 ''bibliograph ...

Early life

Serle was born in

Elsternwick Elsternwick is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 9 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne city centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Glen Eira local government areas of Victoria ...

, Victoria 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 (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

. 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 education, postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Esta ...

. 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 (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...

; 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 Art museum, gallery hire art gallery, exhibition in Australia. It was formed in March 1888 when the Victorian Acad ...

. 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 Australia, Australian History of Australia, history. With approximately a thousand e ...

''; 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 people closely connected with Australia. Serle commented in the Preface: "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 th ...

for 1949 for the work. Serle died on 16 December 1951, in Hawthorn, Victoria, aged 80.

General References

*''The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature'' (Second Edition, 1994).

Early life

Publications

General References

References

Further reading