AustLit

Kay Walsh in the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature ed. William H. Wilde et.al. (1994): 638 argues that this work 'is frequently attributed to Elizabeth Ramsay-Laye, but as the author of this work spent eight years in Victoria in the 1850s, including two years on the goldfields at Forest Creek, and does not appear to have visited NSW, the attribution (based on a guess by a British bookseller) may not be correct.' She repeats this assertion in Australian Autobiographical Narratives: An Annotated Bibliography. volume 2 (1998): 220. Walsh is referring to the note in Ferguson's Bibliography of Australia (1969): 414 which states: ' 'In the bookseller's [R. Fletcher Ltd. New Oxford Street, London] book of reference the author of this book is given as Isabel Massary (?) & the authority for same is a quotation in 'Notes and Queries' February 1869, p.168.' [Note pencilled in D.L. copy].'

Jonathan Wantrup in 'Australia: A Miscellany : First Fleet to Boer War', (New Century Books Cat. 12, July 2002) also argues the basis for attributing this work to Ramsay-Laye is 'non-existent' as 'It simply does not fit with the facts. In the first place the present writer arrived in Victoria in about 1852-3 and left after a few years and, apart from a brief trip to new Zealand, went nowhere outside Victoria. Elizabeth Ramsay-Laye, on the other hand, spent most of her time in Sydney and only briefly visited Victoria. She certainly did not live under canvas on the Victorian diggings. Furthermore her time in Australia went well beyond the few years' visit of our author.' Wantrup ascribes the work to Mrs. A. C. White on the basis of a hand written note on the title page of the White family copy: 'By Mrs. A.C. White, wife of Major Hans Th Fell White 40th Regt. & of Kilbyne Doneraile, Co. Cork'.

It should be noted that the work covers the exact time period that Ramsay-Laye was in Australia and was published in London in the year she returned to England. It also makes reference to life on the gold fields where Ramsay-Laye's husband was employed and describes a trip to New Zealand before departure for England. E. Morris Miller's Australian Literature from Its Foundations to 1935 (1940): 606 also affirms Ramsay-Laye as the author of this work as does the Bibliography of Books, Articles and Pamphlets Dealing with Western Australia (1923).