Eric Charles Rolls

Eric Charles Rolls (1923-2007) was an Australian writer.

Eric was born in Grenfell, New South Wales in 1923, and died in Camden Haven in 2007. He attended the Sydney selective school of Fort Street High, before serving in the second world war in New Guinea, as a signaller. On his return from the war,he took up land in 1946 in the north-west of New South Wales (east of the Pilliga and later at "Cumberdeen", Baradine)and farmed and wrote, often spending long periods in Sydney, researching at the Mtichell Library.

He had two happy marriages, the first with Joan Stephenson and after her death in 1985, a second with Elaine van Kempen, whom he met when she came to work for him in 1985 as his research assistant, and married in 1988.

One of his most celebrated works is A Million Wild Acres of which Tom Griffiths (emeritus professor of history at the ANU) wrote:

"(Les) Murray considered A Million Wild Acres to be like an extended, crafted campfire yarn in which everyone has the dignity of a name, and in which the animals and plants have equal status with humans in the making of history: “It is not purely human history, but ecological history he gives us… one which interrelates the human and non-human dimensions so intimately.” Murray compared its discursive and laconic tone to the Icelandic sagas. Through his democratic recognition of all life, Rolls enchanted the forest and presented us with a speaking land, a sentient country raucous with sound."

(incomplete)

Poetry

• 1967 - Sheaf tosser and other poems
• 1977 - The green mosaic : memories of New Guinea

Books

• 1981 - A million wild acres : 200 years of man and an Australian forest
• 1984 - The river : a chronicle of life on the land / illustrated by Marianne Yamaguchi.
• 1984 - They all ran wild : the story of pests on the land in Australia (13 editions)
• 1984/1998 - Celebration of the senses
• 1992/1993 - Sojourners : the epic story of China's centuries-old relationship with Australia : flowers and the wide sea
• 1996 - Citizens : flowers and the wide sea : continuing the epic story of China's centuries-old relationship with Australia
• 2002 - Visions of Australia : impressions of the landscape 1642-1910
• 2011 - A million wild acres : 200 years of man and an Australian forest/ foreword by Les Murray.