AustLit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

Richard Henry Horne (1802-1884) was a poet, novelist, critic and non-fiction writer. Horne constructed his Australian Facts and Prospects in opposition to Frank Fowler's Southern Lights and Shadows (1859), which, he stated in his Preface, contained "extraordinary [statements], which are not true" (xi), and he strove to correct them before they caused "mischief." The work begins with Horne's Australian autobiography, which detailed his experiences of Melbourne, Bendigo, and his internal travels in a conversational, first person, style. The second section of the work dealt explicitly with emigration, and Fowler's text, describing the intricacies of colonial society and its prospects.