'Australian scholars have written some excellent biographies, and Judith Brett's The Enigmatic Mr Deakin is amongst the best of them. It stands tall alongside recent triumphs like Jill Roe's Stella Miles Franklin and Mark McKenna's An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark. Like Roe and McKenna, Brett draws her readers into a sympathetic understanding of a complex and often contradictory subject. And beyond that, to a new appreciation of the society that shaped him and was shaped by him. Not since Allan Martin's Henry Parkes has an Australian biography captured so well the spirit of the age.' (Introduction)