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Season in Purgatory

book by Thomas Keneally

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ28404915 ↗
Source-derived summary

Season in Purgatory (1976) is a novel by Australian author Thomas Keneally.

Plot outline

The novel is set during the Second World War on the island of Mus, which lies in the Adriatic Sea. David Pelham is a junior medical officer in the British Army who volunteers for battlefield medical work and is parachuted onto the island along with a number of British officers and servicemen. Their aim is to aid Tito's partisans in fighting the occupying Germans.

Reception

Clement Semmler gave a warning to his readers regarding the novel's depictions of surgical operations and finished: "Despite its strong stuff, the novel is, as I have said, immensely readable, more so I believe than any other Thomas Keneally has written to date."

Reviewing the novel in The Canberra Times Sandy Murray noted: "Thomas Keneally possesses in rare degree the capacity of conveying with startling reality the most intimate activities of the varied characters in his novels. His pathos is quickly shared with the reader." And concluded: "Thomas Keneally has not dodged the factual crudities of a war situation which bears the stamp of truth. His rugged realities serve to set war in the context of waste and madness where the untamed tantrums of human nature enjoy full play."

See also

1976 in Australian literature

Notes

Dedication: To my brother John Patrick

Author's note: This mere narrative derives from real events that occurred off the Dalmatian coast in 1943 and 1944. However, the characters - with the exception of Tito himself - are entirely fictional and are not meant to refer, either as regards appearance, behaviour or career, to any officer, doctor or partisan who occupied that place and period.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Season in Purgatory” as book by Thomas Keneally. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Season, Purgatory and book.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1976, 1943, 1944—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1976-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Season, Purgatory and book providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Season in Purgatory”, the useful work is to connect “book by Thomas Keneally” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28404915. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1943 and 1944.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Season in Purgatory”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Season in Purgatory primary sources, Season in Purgatory archive and Season research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Season in Purgatory”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Season in Purgatory” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.