AustLit

' In 1873, the Presbyterian clergyman, John Dunmore Lang, selected and published a collection of his own poetry, the earliest dating from the 1820s when he was establishing a place for himself in New South Wales (NSW). Coming from the same part of Scotland as Robert Burns (Lang was born in 1799 in Greenock, Burns in 1759 some fifty kilometres south in Alloway, near Ayr), Lang might be expected to demonstrate an approach to writing verse and a way of looking at the world similar to his distinguished, internationally renowned countryman, who was so deeply affected by the region in which he was born and lived. Admittedly they were of different generations, and whereas Burns, the son of a poor tenant farmer, was largely self-educated, Lang excelled at the University of Glasgow. But by Lang's time, Burns had posthumously become iconic. Yet as Burns' star continued to rise, with annual suppers conducted in the colonies to celebrate his 'immortal memory', Lang was lambasted in Sydney newspapers, journalists sometimes expecting that their readers would recognise the source of inspiration for their humour in an implied comparison such as the one in the epigraph above.'  (Publication abstract)

'On 29 June 1894, John Arthur Andrews, a professed anarchist, appeared before the magistrate's bench at the Water Police Court in Phillip Street, Sydney over the publication of a pamphlet, A Handbook of Anarchy. Andrews had neglected to include a printer's imprint in his self-published tract, although he had identified himself on the back cover as the author and publisher, and provided an address. For this oversight Andrews, and two others who had sold copies of the Handbook, Messrs. Robinson and Wolfe, were sentenced to three months in prison. Andrews believed that they were imprisoned for the Handbook's contents, not for a technical breach of the law, an interpretation apparently shared by the Stipendiary Magistrate who reportedly told Andrews that the anarchist was being tried for 'sedition'.' (Publication abstract)

'At first glance, this book presents as a sophisticated and cleverly crafted coffeetable publication. The photograph on the cover, set slightly to the right in line with the title, is an excellent example of successful experimental design, a feature echoed throughout the book. In fact, the imaginative arrangement of the photographs is what makes this publication so appealing at first glance. Delving deeper, however, this book is worth much more than a quick glance over a cup of coffee. Contained in the in-depth 'Introduction', and the six informative essays, are details of the life and work of photographer John Joseph Dwyer, and Kalgoorlie's past, that make interesting reading for not only an academic audience with an interest in the history of architecture, but also for anyone drawn to mining towns and their beginnings. There is something, too, for the keen photographer, fascinated by photographic technique and the history of photography.'  (Introduction)

'Historical inquiry is inextricably linked to the political, economic and social events that have influenced and ultimately shaped the individual, the community and the nation. Historians of today are asking broader and more informed questions than ever before and are exploring new and innovative, but ironically, ever present sources and methodologies to unravel how such events have sculpted Australia and Australians. Words and speaking, listening and engagement, literacy — or the lack of an ability to perform these skills — seem to have by-passed the historians' notice as a means of seeking answers to questions of gender, race or class power struggles that have forged a uniquely Australian identity and resulted in the development of Australian English...' (Introduction)

'These carefully selected stories, set in the second half of the nineteenth and into the first decade of the twentieth centuries, reveal much about the attitudes of the writers and their reading audience, and about the social and cultural environments in which they lived. As was the custom, the 'lower classes' are barely, if ever, mentioned. These are stories for the well-to-do by the well-to-do, and individual Aborigines, white stockmen, and other 'working-class' folk, do not feature as protagonists. In their introduction, 'Colonial Australian Romance Fiction', Gelder and Weaver concentrate on ways in which female heroines are portrayed in the collection, suggesting that the girls and women are often seen as 'refreshingly different' (p. 5). On the whole, they are independent, strong willed and, at the same time, well prepared to take on the role of the responsible wife. There is an emphasis, too, on the move from innocence to experience.'  (Introduction)

'This thoroughly entrancing volume falls somewhere between an antiquarian treasure and a nineteenth century graphic novel. It is also possibly the best and most valuable ethnographic work of the last two centuries. Most of it consists of worked up photographs with explanatory captions, depicting intimate and intricate details of Aboriginal life in the lower Murray in the 1850s recorded by the eccentric Polish-German researcher William Blandowski and his team. Blandowski worked among Aboriginal people at a critical time, while the old ways still persisted despite the encroachments of the pastoralists.' (Introduction)

'The cover title of this book is rather misleading, since Zogbaum's contribution amounts to only some half of the publication. As the inside title page reveals, the book comprises three sections: 1) Zogbaum's piece about Basedow, which is a biographically informed account of his views concerning the racial classification of Aborigines; 2) a republication of Basedow's 1935 book Knights of the Boomerang: Episodes from a Life Spent among the Native Tribes of Australia; and 3) an essay by David Kaus, 'On the Photography of Herbert Basedow'. Hence, overall, the book focuses on Basedow's general contribution to Australia's understanding of Aboriginal people, not only on the vexed question of race and eugenics. However, given the topicality of this question in Australian historiography and the fact that the book is the outcome of a 'a three-year collaboration with Prof Robert Manne on the removal of Aboriginal children from their families' (p. ix), the very high profile given to Zogbaum's contribution is perhaps less surprising.' (Introduction)

J. M. Bennett has been praised by The Hon Justice Michael Kirby as 'Australia's foremost legal historian'. He has written the life of Sir Alfred Stephen, third Chief Justice of NSW, 1844-1873, the thirteenth volume in his series Lives of the Australian Chief Justices and it is surely his masterpiece. Bennett uses 'Legge's Reports' and the recently published Dowling's Select Cases 1828-1844, as well as newspapers and a mass of archival letters and papers and thanks his son Michael for help with the thirteen illustrations. He lists 92 'Dramatis Personae', 'principal actors' which is most helpful. One feels that Bennett knows them all well enough to tell us their virtues, achievements and flaws, but they are briefly introduced. He is well acquainted with the 'drudgery of diligence', a phrase from his valuable and unique regional legal history In Witness Whereof: Lawyers, the Law and Society in New England and the Liverpool Plains in the Nineteenth Century. (Introduction)