John Wren: A Life Reconsidered by James Griffin (Second Hand)

SECOND HAND BOOK

In this superbly written and provocative re-examination of historical evidence, James Griffin argues that John Wren – the man made infamous by Frank Hardy in his runaway best-seller Power Without Glory -has been unfairly maligned and misunderstood for decades.

John Wren was a wealthy, self-made entrepreneur who shared Melbourne’s time-honoured preoccupation with horse-racing and football. With wealth came influence, and he played the opportune role of Labour Party fixer. At various times he owned a newspaper, numerous sporting venues, substantial mining investments, and an opera company. The sectarianism of the first half of the twentieth century precluded Wren, with his Irish, Catholic, working-class origins, from entry into the upper echelons of society – as did distaste for his early illegal gambling pursuits. But he did not seek polite society. Wren’s allegiance was to his class and his family, and to them he was a generous and often anonymous benefactor.

And that might have been the end of the story, but for the dramatic intervention of Frank Hardy when Wren was an old man. Hardy’s book rivetted attention with its barely fictionalised denunciation of Wren as uncouth gangster, racketeer, murderer, abusive husband, and nobbler of horses and politicians. Hardy’s image of Wren, embellished by television portrayals and reinforced by Manning Clark and later historians, stuck fast

Now, in this monumental work, Griffin demonstrates that Frank Hardy’s research was fraudulent, and fuelled by political objectives and personal ambition. While John Wren was no saint, he was fair in business.

Hardcover, 468pp, 2004

Condition: good, ex library book, dust cover included

$15.00

1 in stock