Martin Boyd Biography

Australian novelist, born in Lucerne, Switzerland, educated in Melbourne. He came from a distinguished Victorian family of artists and architects. He enlisted in England with the Royal Flying Corps for service during the First World War. Spiritual restlessness and cultural enquiry inform his writings and his life; both reflect allegiance to, and interest in, traditions drawn as much from Europe as from Australia, and especially a complex individual response to a shared past. The Montforts (1928) was of great historical sweep, tracing the story of his mother's family in Victoria from 1850 to 1914. In Lucinda Brayford (1946) Boyd pursued his enduring concern with the differing standards of personal fulfilment and material well-being. The ‘Langton tetralogy’ (The Cardboard Crown, 1952; A Difficult Young Man, 1955; Outbreak of Love, 1957; and When Blackbirds Sing, 1962) explores the history of the Langton family through almost a century, largely through the eyes of family elder Guy Langton, and offers a unique portrait of Australian and British life of the period. A Single Flame (1939) and Day of My Delight (1965) were autobiographical, illuminating the concern for purpose and structure which informs all Boyd's fiction.