To this day, Patrick White remains Australia's only Nobel Prize winner in literature

1912 Born in London to Australian parents Victor (Dick) White and Ruth Withycombe. Raised in Sydney.

1921 First visit to Mt Wilson and the Wynne cousins. Dick and Ruth purchase Beowang  (later Withycombe) for 2000 pounds.

1922 First published works - two letters to the Sydney Sunday Times.

1922-29 Educated at Cranbrook and Tudor House, NSW, and Cheltenham College, England.
 

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1931 Worked on an unpublished novel (Finding Heaven) at Withycombe while waiting to go to Cambridge University.
 

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1932-35 Attended Cambridge University, Kings College. Studied French and German languages and literature. Remained abroad for 13 years after graduation; travelled in Europe and America before the outbreak of war.
 

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1937 Dick White dies.

1938 Withycombe sold to the Church of England for ten shillings.

1939 First novel Happy Valley published; awarded the Australian Literary Society (ALS) Gold Medal (1941).

1940-45 Worked as an intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force - Greece and Egypt.

1941 Publication of The Living and the Dead.

1948 Publication of The Aunt's Story. Returned to Australia and settled on a small farm, Dogwoods, at Castle Hill, Sydney.

1955 Publication of The Tree of Man; awarded ALS Gold Medal (1955).

1957 Publication of Voss; awarded the Miles Franklin Literary Award and, in 1959, the W.H.Smith Literary Award (UK).

1961 Publication of Riders in the Chariot.

1963 Ruth White dies.

1964 Publication of Night on Bald Mountain. Publication of The Burnt Ones; awarded ALS Gold Medal (1965). Moved to Centennial Park, Sydney.

1965 Publication of Four Plays.

1966 Publication of The Solid Mandala.

1969 Suzanne White dies.

1970 Publication of The Vivisector.

1973 Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for "his epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature". Established the Patrick White Literary Award with money from the Prize. Publication of The Eye of the Storm. Named Australian of the Year.

1974 Publication of The Cockatoos.

1975 Awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia.

1976 Returned his Order of Australia in protest at the sacking of the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in November 1975.

1978 Publication of The Night the Prowler.

1979 Publication of The Twyborn Affair.

1981 Publication of Flaws in the Glass.

1986 Publication of Memoirs of Many in One.

1990 Patrick White dies in Sydney.

2003 Manoly Lascaris, Patrick White's partner for nearly fifty years, dies.

Patrick White contributed generously to a multitude of causes including Aboriginal education, homeless men in Sydney, and the Red Cross. He donated numerous paintings to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

His literary works have been translated into twenty eight languages.