Letters from Lillian Roxon to Aviva Layton, 1959-1973, and her son, David Layton, 1971, no date

MLMSS 7869/Box 1X

fonds

1959-1973

Textual Records, Clippings

844062

0.5 metres of textual material (1 outsize box) - manuscript, typescript, computer typescript, photocopy, printed :

Lillian Roxon (1932-1973), New York-based Australian journalist from 1959 to 1973, was born in Italy, the daughter of Polish Jews. The family emigrated to Australia in 1940 and settled in Brisbane. Roxon moved to Sydney in 1949. She enrolled at Sydney University where she wrote for the student newspaper, Honi Soit, and graduated BA with majors in English and Philosophy in 1955. Two years later, Donald Horne recruited her to work on the magazine Weekend. Lillian had by this time become a leading light in the Sydney Push, a group of social anarchists and bohemians. In New York she worked as a freelance journalist before joining the New York bureau of the Sydney Morning Herald in 1963. Her book, Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia, published in 1969, was the first comprehensive history of rock music. Roxon died following an asthma attack in August 1973.

Author Aviva Layton, nee Cantor, and Roxon were friends from the Sydney Push and Sydney University in the 1950s. Layton left for Canada in 1955 and later married the Canadian poet Irving Layton. Through him Roxon met Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, a friend of the couple. Aviva's son, David, was born in 1964. Aviva and Lillian kept in close contact during their North American years.

References:
Compiled from the collection
Nicholas Pounder Bookseller catalogue
Lillian Roxon : mother of rock / Robert Milliken. Melbourne, Vic. : Black Inc., 2002.

This collection comprises thirty-seven letters from Lillian Roxon to Aviva Layton and four greeting cards/postcards to David Layton. The letters to Aviva Layton reflect Roxon’s growing status as an influential rock journalist in New York. They provide insight into her various writing projects; her expatriate life and supporting role to visiting Australian friends and performers, including former Sydney Push colleagues and the Australian band, The Easybeats; and her love life. She also relates gossip about friends and celebrities, and expresses her fear and insecurity over her weight and health, especially asthma in her last years.

Arranged in roughly chronological order by Nicholas Pounder

An illustrated catalogue listing the letters with excerpts from them, notes and interpolations, was compiled by Nicholas Pounder Bookseller, 2008, and accompanies the collection. -

Lillian Roxon's letters are largely undated and Nicholas Pounder has attempted to date the majority of them in his catalogue. Internal evidence of letter no. 35 [December ? 1972] probably dates the letter to early 1965.