An analysis of some of Australia's most famous writers, with excerpts from their novels, to demonstrate and trace the origins of the Australia novel. Included in this volume: Geoffrey Hamlyn, Henry Kingsley; For the Term of His Natural Life, Marcus Clarke; Robbery Under Arms, T.A. Browne; A Marriage Ceremony, Ada Cambridge; On Our Selection, Steele Rudd; Such Is Life, Tom Collins; We Of The Never-Never, Mrs Aeneas Gunn; The Escape Of Sir William Heans, William Hay; Working Bullocks, Katharine Susannah Prichard; Up the Country, 'Brent of Bin Bin'; The Mountfords, Martin Boyd; The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney, Henry Handel Richardson; A House Is Built, M. Barnard Eldershaw; The Passage, Vance Palmer; Man-shy, Frank Dalby Davison; Sun Across the Sky, Eleanor Dark; Mountain Flat, Leonard Mann; The Pea Pickers, Eve Langley.