Jacqueline Kent. A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Jacqueline Kent chats with Gabriella about the choices she made while writing A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis, A Literary Life, the biography of Australia’s doyenne of publishing.

.Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode: 

• Jacqueline Kent’s inspiration for writing a second edition of A Certain Style after her first edition won the National Biography Award in 2002. 


• How Jacqueline structured A Certain Style by bringing together three strands of narrative. 


• How Jacqueline retraced Beatrice Davis’s footsteps when so much of the 1940s and 1950s Sydney landscape Davis knew has been replaced by glass towers and automatic teller machines. 


• Jacqueline’s views on why biographers must avoid making things up. 


• How Jacqueline navigated the rumours about Davis that flew around Sydney’s close- knit publishing circles.


• How Jacqueline reconciled contradictions in Davis’s character and behaviour.

• The literary devices Jacqueline employed to craft witty, captivating narrative.


• The extent to which Jacqueline felt she captured the truth of her subject.

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