Patrick White

@Writers, Family and Family

Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian novelist and playwright

May 28, 1912

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Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: May 28, 1912
  • Died on: September 30, 1990
  • Nationality: Australian
  • Famous: Writers, Gays, Nobel Laureates In Literature, Writers, Novelists, Playwrights
  • Spouses: Manoly Lascaris
  • Known as: Patrick Victor Martindale White
  • Universities:
    • King's College
    • Cambridge
    • University of Cambridge
    • Cheltenham College

Patrick White born at

Knightsbridge, London, England

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Birth Place

Patrick White was a homosexual. His first love affair was with a student priest in King’s College.

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Personal Life

In 1936, White met Maistre, the famous Australian artist. Though they were never lovers, Maistre remained a great influence on White’s life and career.

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Personal Life

While serving his term in the Middle East, White met his life partner, Manoly Lascaris, a Greek army officer. After the war, they settled down in Castle Hill, Australia, where the pair lived for eighteen years.

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Personal Life

Patrick White was born in Knightsbridge, London, to Victor Martindale White and Ruth née Withycombe on 28 May 1912. His parents were both English Australians.

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Childhood & Early Life

When White was six months old, his family returned to Sydney, Australia.

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Childhood & Early Life

White had inherited a hereditary condition of asthma, at the age of four. He suffered from fragile health throughout his childhood and could not participate in many childhood activities.

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Childhood & Early Life

In 1917, he attended kindergarten at Sandtoft in Woollahra.

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Childhood & Early Life

In an effort to cure his asthma, he was enrolled at a boarding school, Tudor House School, in Southern Highlands of New South Wales, at the age of ten. He wrote his early plays there.

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Childhood & Early Life

In 1935, White published a collection of poetry—‘The Ploughman and Other Poems’. The same year, his first play, ‘Bread and Butter Women’ got published as well. This play was performed at Bryant’s Playhouse, Sydney.

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Career

At London, he reworked on ‘Happy Valley’(1939), a novel he had written while jackarooing. He dedicated it to the painter, Roy de Maistre.

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Career

In 1941, the ‘Viking Press’ published White’s ‘The Living and the Dead’. The novel was written during his stay in the United States.

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Career

By 1945, he joined the British Royal Air Force as an intelligence officer in the Middle East. He subsequently served in Egypt, Palestine and Greece before the Second World War got over.

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Career

In 1955, White published ‘The aunt’s Story’ in England and ‘The Tree of Man’ in the US. These novels did not find acclaim in Australia.

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Career

‘Voss’ (1957), based on the life of the explorer and naturalist Ludwig Leichhardt, is considered to be the most successful novel of Patrick White. In 1986, it was turned into an opera and was shown at the Adelaide Festival of Arts.

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Major Works