Cirrus@Austlit

'There was a time when a selection of essays, sketches, reviews and speeches by David Marr would have seemed less necessary than it does now. From his rookie days at The Bulletin onwards, Marr was one of those figures who seemed to speak for and to the broad and thoughtful Australian middle class. He served as an ordinary oracle for the constitutional liberalism and decency of the majority. The man reflected, though in more elegant prose than was perhaps deserved, just who we were as a people.' (Introduction)