Melba's Gift Book of Australian Art and Literature

Last year a friend from my Sydney 'high finance' days, Julie Cleary, visited Melbourne from her home in New Zealand where she has lived for more than 20 years. It was just like yesterday, seeing her again. Lovely. She brought with her from New Zealand a special gift, a one hundred year old copy of 'Melba's Gift Book of Australian Art and Literature', which I was thrilled to receive.  

Melba's Gift Book, 1915

Afterwards, when I sent my thanks, this email came back, explaining how the book came into Julie's possession:

There is quite a story to it, in that our neighbour was a recluse and a hoarder of considerable volumes of everything. In the five years we have lived here I spoke to her three times and then only about getting her trees trimmed - spectacularly unsuccessfully, I may add. She simply shunned people and loved trees.

Recently she fell ill and died shortly thereafter. Somehow I was charged with getting the house cleaned out, a mammoth task. Four industrial-sized bins were filled with rubbish. The Melba book was one of the few things worth saving and I strongly feel it ought to be in Melbourne with someone who appreciates it.  I know you are the perfect recipient.  Julie xx

Perfect is right, for reasons Julie would not have known. For a start, it sparked nostalgia for all the trips I made up and down the Melba Highway during the years when I lived at Yea. Dame Nellie Melba, 1861-1931, the famous opera singer whose choice of stage name honours her home town of Melbourne, owned a country estate at Lilydale. The road now bearing her name branches off the Maroondah Highway on the corner of her old property and heads northwards to Yea.

Dame Nellie Melba, Frontispiece in 'Melba's Gift Book'

A second reason was the purpose of this book. I opened it to find the inside front cover personally autographed by 'Melba' at 'Xmas 1915' as part of her extensive fund-raising efforts for the Belgian Relief Fund in the Great War. This Fund I knew about. Among the Great War letters written by my grandmother's Boulton brothers and published in my recent book 'Brothers in Arms' are one or two letters singling out the pitiful state of the Belgian refugees who reached England in 1914, after their country was invaded. Until I held Melba's book in my hands and read her two-page introduction I didn't know that she too was so moved by their plight that she conceived this book project and donated all its proceeds to the Fund.

Her introduction is followed by 49 other short items, stories and poems contributed to Melba's 'cause' by writers who remain household names today, including Ethel Turner, Mrs Aeneas Gunn, Henry Lawson, C.J. Dennis and Dorothea Mackellar. Lavish illustrations, 34 in total with some plates in full colour, were donated by famous artists such as Norman Lindsay, Hans Heysen, Will Dyson, Arthur Streeton, Fred C McCubbin, Julian Ashton, the children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and the botanical artist Ellis Rowan. Here was a third reason to love receiving Julie's unexpected gift - the beauty of its words and pictures takes me back into another era.

There was also a fourth and final reason. Ellis Rowan's black & white painting 'A Wild Garden' grabbed my attention, as the subject of my most recent book 'Margaret Flockton: A Fragrant Memory', was another botanical artist. Clearly Margaret Flockton (1861-1953), for all the recognition she receives today and the international art award in her name, did not mix in Nellie Melba's circle of fame back in 1915.

Ellis Rowan's 'A Wild Garden'

Clearly there are many reasons for me to treasure this book. Thank you, Julie Cleary, for saving it from the skip and placing it in my care. 

The book has great significance for others too. In recognition of 'Melba's Gift Book' as one of the best examples of WW1 fund-raising efforts, and as part of the centenary events commemorating the terrible period in world history from 1914-1918, work from this book is currently on exhibition. Signifying Melba's connection with Lilydale and the Melba Highway, the exhibition is on show at the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum, 35-37 Castella St, Lilydale. The Museum is open every day, 10am-4pm, free entry. The exhibition closes on Sunday 4 February 2018.