Literature and writing | National Library of Australia (NLA)

Literature and writing

Showing 1 - 12 of 91 results
Text in a retro font reading '1975 Living in the Seventies' on a bright orange background
1975: Living in the Seventies

Look back on life in the 70s including politics, feminism, pop culture, news of the day, and more.

Exhibition
Collection guide
Fitzhardinge Collection

About 300 books including incunabula and early editions of classical texts, plus limited edition reprints of celebrated English writers, mostly published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Collection guide
Collection guide
De Vesci Collection

Country house library collection of 1648 books and 54 serials with strength in English and French publications of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

Collection guide
Collection guide
Duncan-Hughes Collection

About 6200 books about European literature, history and culture, mostly published in the period 1880-1960. 

Collection guide
Collection guide
Durand Collection

About 4000 books, mostly published in France in the 19th and early 20th century, as well as a number of German, Italian, Latin and Greek books.

Collection guide
Christos Tsiolkas wearing a blue shirt standing in front of the ocean by a rock pool

Image credit: Zoe Ali

2025 Ray Mathew Lecture: Christos Tsiolkas

Award-winning author Christos Tsiolkas delivers the 2025 Ray Mathew Lecture, exploring the idea of 'Fence-sitting', and its place in the modern world.

Event
Books and octavos of various colours and binding from the Ferguson Collection on shelves

The Ferguson Collection situated in the National Library stacks

Honouring a legacy through digitisation

A gift from the Ralf Iannuzzi Memorial Trust is helping us to digitise some of our rarest items. 

News article
Collection guide
Chaplin Collection

Collections of papers from several significant Australian authors collected by Harry Chaplin.

Collection guide
Portrait of Judith Wright

Terry Milligan, Portrait of Judith Wright, c. 1998, nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1891350

The environmental vision of Judith Wright with Prof John Morrissey

Join Prof John Morrissey for a discussion about his recent Fellowship research focused on the environmental writing of renowned Australian poet and author Judith Wright.

Event
Collection guide
Wang Collection

A vast repository of over 4,000 books, primarily in Chinese, covering history, culture, politics, and religion. Collected between 1950 and 2000, it includes rare texts from Taiwan and China, reflecting the richness of Chinese scholarship. 

Collection guide
Collection guide
Lowenstein Collection

Oral history recordings, manuscripts and papers relating mainly to Australian folklore and Lowenstein's books Weevils in the flour and Under the hook.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Mackaness Collection

Literary manuscripts submitted to the Bulletin in 1918–20, personal papers, 185 books related to Australia, some very rare, plus 30 books published in Tahiti by the London Missionary Society in 1817–37.

Collection guide

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