AustLit

‘In human reckoning, Golden Ages are always already in the past. The Greek poet Hesiod, in Works and Days, posited Five Ages of Mankind: Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron (Ovid made do with four). Writing in the Romantic period, Thomas Love Peacock (author of such now almost forgotten novels as Nightmare Abbey, 1818) defined The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) in which their order was Iron, Gold, Silver and Bronze. To the Golden Age, in their archaic greatness, belonged Homer and Aeschylus. The Silver Age, following it, was less original, but nevertheless 'the age of civilised life'. The main issue of Peacock's thesis was the famous response that he elicited from his friend Shelley - Defence of Poetry (1821).’ (Publication abstract)

'Long before the post-WWII migration, over one hundred Australian writers left their homeland to seek fame and fortune in London. Some made little mark despite their arduous efforts; some made a tolerable living; a few, like Martin Boyd, H.H. Richardson and Christina Stead, actually achieved permanent fame. Lusting for London analyses how these writers reacted to their new surroundings—in both their autobiographical writings and their creative work. With wit and rigor, Peter Morton studies the expatriate experience and reveals the ways in which the loss of these expatriates affected the evolving literary culture of Australia' (Publisher blurb).

Contents: Issues of Definition and Evidence; Sailing for El Dorado: Going Home in the Literary Imagination; A Gout of Bile: Metic and Immigrant Expatriates; The Aroma of the Past: in Antipodean London; Drawing off the Rich Cream: The Struggle in London; Who Are You? No One: The Hacking Journalist in London; The Dear Old Mother Country: Richardson's The Way Home and Stead's For Love Alone; Always the Feeling of Australia in the Air: Martin Boyd's Lucinda Brayford; A Leaven of Venturesome Minds: Literary Expatriates and Australian Culture; No More Pap from the Teats of London: From Expatriation toTtransnationalism; Conclusion: A Padded Cell in Wagga Wagga.