AustLit

"W.E. Brenton, author of 'The Soul of Harry Brace', which will begin publication in the Herald tomorrow, Tuesday, has worked out his story on a wide canvas. The background is authentically Australian. It depicts, first of all, the Ballarat goldfields in 1853, when the gold-fever was at its height. The violent incidents that take place here, however, form only a prologue to the main plot. This latter begins at an alluvial diggings called Macandrews, about 50 miles from Melbourne. As the story progresses, the author indicates with vivid little touches of description the way the character of the place changed with the passing of the years - how the diggers began to exhaust the alluvial deposits ; how the primitive digger changed into the skilful miner, and called in the aid of engineers and builders and road makers ; how the rush for wheat growing land set up a new form of gambling ; how the railway and telegraph came; and so forth. For the story covers many years. At its beginning the two central characters have not met. At the end, their children are grown up. The best of the novel is that, while its psychology is true, one can never guess what is going to happen next. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the progress of the plot is unpredictable simply because in real life one can never look forward confidently to a happy ending wherein all troubles are smoothed away, and the people concerned live happily ever after." - the Sydney Morning Herald, 23 December 1930, (p.8)