'Marcus Clarke is rightly remembered as the author of one of the great Australian novels, His Natural Life (1874). Writing in 1898, historian Henry Gyles Turner and journalist Alexander Sutherland described Clarke as a ‘notable pioneer in the fiction fields of Australia, and one of the most promising littérateurs ever developed under exclusively Australian surroundings’. Although dying at 35, Clarke’s output was prodigious and, apart from his great novel, included numerous Australian bush tales, sketches and dramas, and satirical, humorous and critical works.' (Introduction)
