Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1940-1953 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent and medium
2 boxes
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Duncan Murray Gordon was born in 1912, the son of a commercial traveller. In 1927 he won a scholarship to Stott's College, Melbourne, and in August 1940 began a clerical job at the Victorian mining company Broken Hill South Ltd. He served in the Second World War between March 1941 to July 1946, in both the AMF (Australian Military Forces) and AIF (Australian Imperial Force) in Australia and New Guinea. Gordon, generally known as Murray Gordon wrote several short stories during this time, three of which were published in Southerly in 1945. Following his demobilisation Gordon returned to his old firm, leaving it in July 1949, 'in order to undergo a period of training for an entirely different occupation'. In 1950 he settled in England and his writing career appears to have ceased.
Repository
Archival history
Acquired from antiquarian bookseller Richard Ford, London, UK. No other provenance information available.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Richard Ford, Antiquarian Bookseller, London, UK.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The papers are comprised of four diaries (1940-1943; 1950, 1953), two bound typescripts of short story collections (ca. 1944 and ca. 1947), three scrapbooks (1944-1946) and one printed publication (1945).
The first two diaries cover the period between 1940 and 1944, including his work at Broken Hill South Ltd. and his war service in Australia and New Guinea. The other two diaries are travel diaries from 1950 and 1953.
The two bound typescripts contain largely unpublished short stories, with the second typescript mainly being a redrafting of the first.
The three scrapbooks, dating from 1944 to 1946, contain among other things correspondence (including rejection letters), wartime ephemera, cuttings (including several pages of cuttings relating to the ‘Ern Malley’ hoax), list of films and more.
Also contained in the papers is a bound volume containing Gordon’s own copies of three issues of Southerly, each of which features a story by him.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Arranged into 4 series.
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Unrestricted access
Conditions governing reproduction
Copyright applies
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Alternative identifier(s)
Alma MMS ID
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Final
Level of detail
Full
Dates of creation revision deletion
Created, JH, 7-Sep-2020