Eleanor (O'Reilly) Dark A.O. (1901 - 1985)

Born 26 Aug 1901 in Croydon, New South Wales, Australia

Ancestors

Wife of Eric Payten Dark — married Feb 1922 (to about 1985) in Paddington, New South Wales, Australia

Died 1 Sep 1985 at age 84 in Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia

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Biography

Eleanor (O'Reilly) Dark A.O. is Notable.

Eleanor O'Reilly was born in August 1901 in Croydon a suburb of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. She was the daughter of Dowell O'Reilly a noted Australian poet and author and a former Member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, and his first wife Eleanor Grace (nee McCulloch).

Eleanor O'Reilly, later Eleanor Dark, was one of Australia's most highly regarded writers of the 1930s and '40s. She began writing in her childhood and contributed verse, short stories and articles to various magazines. In February 1922 she married Dr Eric Payten Dark (1889–1987), a widower and general practitioner who wrote books, articles and pamphlets on politics and medicine. Both were later suspected of Communist ties due to their outspoken anti Robert Menzies Conservative Federal Government views in the 1940s and 1950s.

As Eleanor Dark she twice won the Australian Literature Society’s gold medal; for her second and third novels, Prelude to Christopher (1934) and Return to Coolami (1936). The former raised the issues of eugenics and insanity; the latter was a more conventional, romantic domestic drama. The first volume of Dark’s Trilogy of novels highlighting early Australian settlement titled The Timeless Land (1941), brought her critical acclaim both at home and overseas, especially in the United States of America, where it was the Book of the Month Club’s selection for October that year. The second book in the series titled Storm of Time (1948), matched the first in critical reception and, arguably, surpassed it in quality. However by the third, No Barrier (1953), she could not find an American publisher to release it and it suffered in comparison.

Eleanor Dark's work consisted of 10 published novels, and her pseudonym Patricia O'Rane or simply P O'R was used for her verse which she wrote in the 1920s and early 1930s. They along with many short stories were published in various Australian magazines and journals in that period including The Bulletin and the Woman’s Mirror.

Eleanor Dark was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours of 1977. She would later retire to her family home at Katoomba in the New South Wales Blue Mountains region, as a virtual recluse. And it was here that Mrs Dark passed away in September 1985, at the age of 84 and was laid to rest in the Blackheath Cemetery, Blackheath, New South Wales. Her beloved husband Eric Dark passed away at nearby Wentworth Falls on 28 July 1987, two years after Eleanor.

Sources

• New South Wales Births, Deaths & marriages: BIRTH: O'REILLY, ELEANOR - registration no. 20922/1901 - father: DOWELL P. - mother: ELEANOR G. - district: BURWOOD. first accessed online on the 21st of August, 2022 from the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages search at: https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search/births?

• New South Wales Births, Deaths & Marriages: MARRIAGE: registration no. 2403/1922 - groom: DARK, ERIC P. - bride: O'REILLY, ELEANOR - district: PADDINGTON. first accessed online on the 21st of August, 2022 from the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages search at: https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search/marriages?

• New South Wales Births, Deaths & Marriages: DEATH: DARK, ELEANOR - registration no. 25790/1985 - father: DOWELL PHILLIP - mother: ELIZABETH - district: 077. first accessed online on the 21st of August, 2022 from the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages search at: https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search/deaths?

• Marivic Wyndham, Dark, Eleanor (1901–1985), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dark-eleanor-12400/text22291, published first in hardcopy 2007, accessed online 21 August 2022

• Eleanor Dark from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. first accessed online on the 21st of August, 2022 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Dark

• Find a Grave, database and images accessed 21 August 2022, memorial page for Eleanor O'Reilly Dark (unknown–11 Sep 1985), Find a Grave Memorial ID Find A Grave: Memorial #153123664, citing Blackheath Cemetery, Blackheath, Blue Mountains City, New South Wales, Australia; Maintained by Jeff (contributor 48035441).

Further Reading

• Eleanor Dark BIOGRAPHY from the AustLit database as hosted on the University of Queensland website. first accessed online on the 21st of August, 202 at: https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A10642

• Dark, Eleanor (1901-1985) on TROVE

• Name: Mrs Eleanor DARK 26th of January, 1977. from the AUSTRALIAN HONOURS SEARCH FACILITY

• Lemon, Barbara, 2008, Dark, Eleanor (1901 - 1985), © Copyright in The Australian Women's Register. Which is owned by the Australian Women's Archives Program (and vested in each of the authors in respect of their contributions from 2000) retrieved on the 21st of August 2022 from: http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE3679b.htm

• Eleanor Dark a Pencil sketch of Eleanor Dark by her brother "Bim" (Dated: ca. 1920) retrieved from the BLUE MOUNTAINS LIBRARY on the 21st of August, 2022

• Eleanor Dark Denies Charge from The Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954) of Saturday 17 May 1947, Page 12. first accessed on TROVE on the 21st of August, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245590886?

• Eleanor Dark from the Daily Mercury (Mackay, Qld. : 1906 - 1954) of Saturday 13 November 1948, Page 2. first accessed on TROVE on the 21st of August, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/171434358?

• Tribute to Eleanor Dark from the Tribune (Sydney, NSW : 1939 - 1991) of Wednesday 6 December 1978, Page 10. first accessed on TROVE on the 21st of August, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/260214301?

• Summer Reading from the Tribune (Sydney, NSW : 1939 - 1991) of Wednesday 11 December 1985, Page 8. first accessed on TROVE on the 21st of August, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259564657?searchTerm=%22Eleanor%20dark%22