Daisy Bates, Aboriginal Stellar Myths (nonfiction extract)
by Daisy Bates. Tribes, now far apart, whose very dialect has changed in the centuries, possess myths and legends whose similarity is evidence of tribal unity in some far-off time.
Hannah Villiers Boyd, Letters on Education (nonfiction extract)
by Hannah Villiers Boyd (1807-c1865) Hannah Villiers Boyd emigrated from Ireland to Australia in 1841. She wrote two books, including a series of letters on the instruction of young ladies in remote Australia, published in 1848. The following passages are extracted...
Catherine Helen Spence, The Literary Calling (nonfiction extract)
by Catherine Helen Spence (1825-1910) On writing fiction – extracted from Spence’s discussion of a contemporary essay on literary aspiration. The creative omnipotence of the poet and the novelist, who, summons so many spirits to do his bidding, has no...
“Old-Women’s Stories”: Mrs Langloh Parker’s Preface to Australian Legendary Tales
by Mrs Langloh Parker Barbarians did the dreaming of the world, poetry arose in their fancies, and poetry, in spite of facts and science, resolutely refuses to ‘follow darkness like a dream.’ Mrs. Parker’s collection demonstrates that, amongst the...
