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Love Letters: Courtship Stories :the case of Vance and Nettie Palmer 1909-1914 Deborah Jordan University of Queensland (Australia) The extraordinary record of Nettie and Vance's protracted romance has produced something very much like a vast espistolary novel, full of joy, uncertainty, introspection and tragedy. The two lovers were more often apart and on differenct sides of the globe than together in the five years preceding marriage. Epistolary narratives cross many boundaries for the private letter is an action or gesture, as well as the representation of one, and in this case often experienced by its intended recipient as a kiss. Vance and Nettie's love letters can be framed in numerous contexts, allow multiple and complex readings, open up intimate windows into pre-war politics, religion, and gender politics in Australia and Europe. This paper accompanied by a slide show or power point will explore some of the issues involved in the transcription and annotation of the letters and the dramatic possibities, the construction of identity and the play of seduction between lovers in the specific case of Vance and Nettie Palmer and the wider context acoss continents. In a general conclusion the paper will relate love letters to the broader themes of the conference - +of lives and memories, of shared visions and private myth-making.
About Deborah Jordan Deborah Jordan is currently working on a annotated transcription, in conjunction with Prof. Carole Ferrier and Dr Maryanne Dever at the University of Queensland. Long term Palmer scholar, her biography Nettie Palmer: Search for an Aesthetic came out in 1999. She has worked as a writer and historian within the academy, for the private and public sector for the last three decades.
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