SGS Press

Sydney Grammar School Press was founded in 1995 under the general editorship of the Headmaster. Its principal purpose is to encourage scholarship among members of the teaching staff with special reference to unpublished material in the School Archives. The press has also published original material for use in teaching, including one of the few primers in English available in the world for teaching Sanskrit.

Order Form for SGS Press Publications

Inside Sydney Grammar School; photographs by Max Dupain and Rex Dupain

2007 was the sesquicentenary of the arrival of the first boys at College Street in 1857. To mark this anniversary, the Old Sydneians' Union and the School have published a book of photographs by two of our old boys, Max Dupain and Rex Dupain.

The Big School Room at Sydney Grammar School : with an account of the decline & fall of Sydney College, by J. S. Sheldon. 1997.

The first part of the book is principally intended as a history of Sydney's oldest school room and the building in which it is housed. This building has been longer in continuous use for educational purposes than any other in Australia. A synoptic view of the progress of the School under its successive Headmasters is also given in the course of narrating this history. The author says, "I have attempted to people the room with some memorable characters who have inhabited it over the years and to pause from time to time to dwell on some of the important and historical scenes for which it has provide the setting." The latter sections are intended in part to serve as a practical guide to Big School as it is at the present time. The book also contains an extended article on the latter history of Sydney College which breaks new ground in dealing with a previously unknown Headmaster, Charles Woodward. Sydney College, the ancestor of the present Sydney Grammar School, was housed in the College Street building from 1835-1850. Its ignominious demise is recorded here.

Rambles in New South Wales : the XYZ letters, edited and introduced by R. D. Townsend. 1996.

The XYZ Letters are a series of letters written in 1827 by an anonymous author, decribing a tour of the Colony of New South Wales in its infancy. The letters are full of observation and opinion, and are written in a lively style. They are edited with extensive footnotes.

Reading Sanskrit : a course for beginners, by J. S. Sheldon. 1998.

This is an elementary text book designed for classes at the School commencing the study of this language. It allows the students to proceed as quickly as possible to the reading of Classical Sanskrit texts without too much preliminary study of the complicated looking paradigms of the language the confusing operation of Sandhi, both of which have often proved daunting to beginners. It only includes as much of the formal grammar as is necessary for an understanding of the texts used in the books. The texts are selected from two collections of fables, Hitopadeca and Pancatantra, from two poems, the narrative Kathasaritsagara and the epic Mahabharata. The final exercise consists of an entire scene from a Classical Sanskrit drama the Nagananda of Shri Harsha. The book contains a basic vocabulary of the most common roots and words found in the language.

Visions and revisions : selected poems 1974 - 1994, compiled by Jeremy Nelson. 1998.

Poems in this book have been published in Poetry Australia, Quadrant, Southern Review, Makar, The Catholic Worker, Westerly, Patterns, The Sydney Morning Herald, Eureka Street, The Lines Review, and broadcast by the ABC. This collection contains a selection of verse from the last twenty years. Much of it, often in other versions, has been published by Angus and Roberston in City of Man and Diagrams of Paradise. Sydneian Poets 1819 to 1919, edited and introduced by J. A. Garrick. 1999. Few schools can claim as many significant participants in Australia's literary history as Sydney Grammar School. Its age and central position in our educational culture mean that a collection of its poets inevitably represents many of the features and stages in the development of our literature. Some of the names in this anthology may have faded with time or been eclipsed by the fame of Banjo Paterson, but all of the poets here have made a recognised contribution to Australian letters and, in many cases, to the nation's wider social progress.

College Street Heroes: Old Sydneians in the Great War, by A. B. Gaunson. 1999

More than 1750 Old Sydneians enlisted during the Great War. They were a magnificent group of young men with everything to live for. Yet they went to war, realising that there was a very strong chance they would not come back. From all the Old Sydneians' in the Great War, it has been possible to feature only a minority in this book. The author assures those linked to an Old Sydneian Anzac that, with a view to broader edition, he would welcome further information they may wish to forward, c/- the Archivist.