Erle Cox

Out of the Silence Erle Cox

THE name of Erle Cox is well known to readers of The Australasian, by reason of his weekly book review, and is also familiar to a wide public through the medium of his own books, especially "Out of the Silence," which has maintained- and is maintaining-a steady sale over a period of 20 years or so, something unusual in these days of mass production and short lives in novels. He needs, therefore, little introduction to you as a name, but here he is as a personality, looking, in the opinion of Esther Paterson, who here depicts him, somewhat like John Galsworthy facially, though any resemblance does not extend to the top of the head-Mr. Cox's being covered with a vigorous growth of hair. He was born in Melbourne, and on leaving school went on to the land as a vine grower at Rutherglen, on the Victorian side of the Murray. But though there producing the "subtle alchemist," he was also developing his own powers of alchemy, transmuting the drab of daily experience into verse and story. For writing was in his blood. His paternal grand father, who was an official with the Astoria Co., a fur-trading rival to the Hudson Bay Company, wrote a book on the Columbia River, which was published in 1831. And his father, Boss Cox, was also a well-known writer in Melbourne.