The Oxford Book of Australian Letters

1998, from Charles Darwin and D H Lawrence, to Percy Grainger and Olaf Stapledon

Author

Brenda Niall, and John Thompson (editors), with Pamela Williams

Publisher

Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1998

Printing Details

First Australian edition, first printing. Hardback in dustwrapper. 23.5 × 15.5cm. xxi + 321pp

The collection is impressively eclectic. There are letters from explorers, convicts, politicians, journalists, scientists, judges, painters, and musicians. The anthology represents those who made no special mark on history but whose letters illuminate a particular aspect of the national experience. Among these are letters from pioneers, expressing their sense of dislocation. One notable group of letters comes from men and women at war—and from wives and mothers back in Australia. The editors have also represented indigenous Australians whose lives were so abruptly changed by European settlement. The term Australian has been interpreted broadly to represent letters with a strong Australian connection, such as those from Charles Darwin, Anthony Trollope, D. H. Lawrence, and Joyce Grenfell.