Percival Serle

Percival Serle
Born	Template:Birth date Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia
Died	December 16, 1951(1951-12-16) (aged 80) Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia
Occupation(s)	Bibliographer, biographer, bookseller, university clerk and accountant, guide-lecturer, curator
Known for	Dictionary of Australian Biography

Percival Serle (18 July 1871 – 16 December 1951) was a distinguished Australian bibliographer and biographer.

Early life

Serle was born in Elsternwick, Victoria, to parents who had emigrated from England. Prior to his appointment as chief clerk and accountant at the University of Melbourne in November 1910, he spent many years working in the life insurance sector. On 29 March 1910, he married Dora Beatrice Hake, an artist, and together they had three children. Their son, Alan Geoffrey Serle, received a Victorian Rhodes Scholarship in 1947.

During the Great Depression, Serle managed a second-hand bookstore. He also held roles as a guide-lecturer and curator at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Art Museum and was a member of the Victorian Artists Society council. Furthermore, he served as president of the Australian Literature Society.

Publications

Among Serle’s significant contributions are an annotated version of Christopher Smart’s A Song to David and Other Poems; A Bibliography of Australasian Poetry and Verse: Australia and New Zealand; An Australasian Anthology, co-edited with Furnley Maurice and R. H. Croll; selections of poetry by Furnley Maurice; the comprehensive Dictionary of Australian Biography; and A Primer of Collecting.

The Dictionary of Australian Biography, which took over two decades to complete, contains more than one thousand entries on notable Australians or individuals closely associated with Australia. In his preface, Serle acknowledged that additional time might have enhanced the work but felt compelled to finalize it at age seventy-five. This dictionary was honored with the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1949.

Serle passed away on 16 December 1951 in Hawthorn, Victoria, at the age of eighty.

General References

• The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature (Second Edition, 1994).