In his first important book, A Letter from Sydney . . . (1829), Wakefield proposed the sale of crown lands in small units at a "sufficient price" (fixed and modest), rather than the granting of large tracts free. The proceeds would pay for sending emigrants from Great Britain, who were to be equally divided by sex and to represent a cross-section of English society. The book was initially described as edited by Robert Gouger who later became one of the founders of South Australia.
According to the introduction to the Everyman edition of A Letter from Sydney... (1929) by R.C. Mills, Wakefield 'set out in lively and entertaining fashion his experiences as a settler on twenty thousand acres of land in New South Wales'. In fact, Wakefield was never in Australia but wrote this work from prison where he was serving three years for kidnapping a young heiress. Mills goes on to assert that the subterfuge was designed to 'clothe in attractive form a serious attempt to analyse the economic, social and political conditions of New South Wales'.
