Germaine Greer Archive

The Germaine Greer Archive currently fills over 460 archive boxes (occupying almost 80m of shelf space) mainly documenting the period 1959-2009 and is still in the process of being created; with future deposits scheduled. It contains: incoming and outgoing correspondence including a large series of general correspondence and smaller sets of correspondence with publishers, academics and librarians; appointments diaries; notes and drafts relating to academic studies and research at the universities of Melbourne, Sydney and Cambridge; major works including research material, drafts, proofs, clippings and publicity; files on journalism, speaking, radio and television engagements including drafts and published versions, correspondence, notes, clippings, commissions and contracts; a small number of sketches and papers for Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, and scripts, pitches or synopses for theatre and film; correspondence and papers relating to Australia regarding visits, media, politics and family; audio-visual recordings including those created, received and collected by Greer on various media; digital media containing electronic drafts, research, and correspondence; records relating to university appointments including teaching literature at the universities of Warwick, Tulsa and Newnham College, Cambridge; research files on women and literature and women artists; the records of Stump Cross Books; honours and awards; books including major works and books with contributions by Greer; ephemera mainly feminist magazines; and administrative files on housekeeping, gardening, Essex and the Cave Creek Rainforest Rehabilitation Scheme.

Biographical Notes

Germaine Greer, author, journalist, broadcaster, feminist and conservationist was born in Melbourne, Australia on January 29, 1939. She was educated at Star of the Sea College, Gardenvale, studied English and French literature and language at the University of Melbourne, (BA Hons) and graduated MA (Hons I) from the University of Sydney with a thesis on Byron’s satiric verse, and was a Senior Tutor in English (1963-1964). Greer earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge on Shakespeare’s Early Comedies and was appointed Lecturer at the University of Warwick (1967-1972). Greer was one of the first women appointed full members of Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club and subsequently played roles in comedies for television, with regular appearances on radio and television continuing throughout her career. A contributor and editor for the underground press Oz and Suck magazines, Greer was also a gardening columnist ‘Rose Blight’ for Private Eye in the late 1960s and 1970s, Greer has written widely throughout her career for the mainstream press as a journalist, columnist and reviewer.

In 1970 Greer published The Female Eunuch, which explored the limitations on women’s lives and selves in the wider context of the liberation movements of that time. It created a shock wave of recognition in women around the world, became an international bestseller and a landmark in the history of the women’s movement and was reprinted and widely translated. This launched Greer’s career as an author and was followed by a series of popular and academic books including: The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and their Work 1979 , Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility 1984, Shakespeare 1986, The Madwoman’s Underclothes selected journalism 1964-1985 1986, Kissing the Rod: An Anthology of Seventeenth Century Women’s Verse, coedited 1988, Daddy we hardly knew you (1989), The Uncollected Verse of Aphra Behn (Ed.) 1989, The Change: Women Ageing and the Menopause 1991, The Collected Works of Katherine Philips: The Matchless Orinda (vol. III The Translations) with Dr R. Little 1993, Slip-Shod Sibyls: Recognition Rejection and the Women Poet 1995, The Surviving Works of Anne Wharton (ed. with S. Hastings) 1997, The Whole Woman 1999, John Wilmot Earl of Rochester 1999, 101 Poems by 101 Women (ed.) 2001, The Boy (2003), Poems for Gardeners (Ed. 2003), Whitefella Jump Up: The Shortest Way to Nationhood (Quarterly Essay) 2003-2004, Shakespeare’s Wife 2007, On Rage 2008, and White Beech 2013. Greer is in addition the publisher of several volumes of seventeenth century women’s writing under the imprint Stump Cross Books.

Greer taught at the Universities of Tulsa (1979-1983), Warwick (c. 1989-2003) and is a Special Supervisor in English at Newham College Cambridge (2008-). She is the president of the invertebrate charity Buglife and the founder of Friends of Gondwana Rainforest charity which manages the Cave Creek Rainforest Rehabilitation Scheme in Southern Queensland. In 2013 Greer sold her archive to the University of Melbourne, with proceeds to benefit Friends of Gondwana. Greer is the recipient of numerous scholarships, honours and awards.

Source: Who’s Who in Australia.