AustLit

'A slightly revised version of Randolph Stow's third novel, To the Islands (1958), was published in Australia by Angus and Robertson in 1981. Randolph Stow remarks in the Preface to this revised edition that as the novel was completed not long after his twenty-second birthday, it is flawed by immaturity and a disparity between ambition and technical competence. However, in the revision he does not make a major attempt to salvage the novel from these flaws; indeed he offers them to his public as representing "a certain stage in the life of a sort of young man".1 In the Preface, Stow also comments on the subsequent history of the Mission aboriginals, corrects critical misapprehensions about the "anti-realist" intention of and influences on the novel, and draws attention to an additional epigraph. The actual revisions to the novel reveal Stow's sensitivity to criticism; his concern for accuracy of image, felicity of expression and naturalness of dialogue; and his embarrassment about the racist attitudes of some characters and the Lucy Walker style love-interest in the original version. The revisions affect plot development and the characterizations of Heriot, Helen Bond, Bob Gunn, Father Way and Terry Dixon.' (Publication abstract)