Cirrus@Austlit

'Blockbuster! is a fascinating and engaging read from start to finish. The exhaustive research which informs the book never overwhelms the flow of the narrative, which is expressed in clear, precise prose. The reader is offered here two intriguing subjects. While this is the publishing story of Fergus Hume’s famous detective book, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab, and an early example of the detective genre, it is also, side-by-side as it were, the story of Melbourne in the final two decades of the nineteenth century. Indeed Lucy Sussex labels three novels by Hume his “Melbourne Trilogy”: Hansom Cab (1886), Madame Midas (1888) and Miss Mephistopheles (1890), all three novels offering vibrant local colour: “a prospectus, in fiction” (200) as Sussex later puts it. The “trilogy” designation moreover lends a specific gravitas to Hume whose standing in literary terms has never had the prestige it should within the annals of Australian literature. Blockbuster! will considerably amend this situation. That Hume had published seventeen books by the end of 1892 will doubtless come as a surprise to most readers.'  (Introduction)

'In 1839, with his brother Godfrey and other family members, Richard Howitt (1799-1869) emigrated to Australia as a settler but returned to England in 1844, disillusioned. His experiences are recorded in Impressions of Australia Felix, during Four Years’ Residence in that Colony (1845), an interesting mixture of prose and his own poetry, as well as occasional quotations from other published poets.

'Like a poetic talisman, William Wordsworth’s name recurs again and again in both the poetry and the prose of Richard Howitt, both directly and indirectly. The focus of this article will be on two poems addressing an English daisy discovered in Australia by Howitt, to consider them in the light of four daisy poems published by Wordsworth between 1807 and 1815.

'Finally, this article will argue that the power of memory and recollection, explored through Howitt’s poetry, would prove to be the undoing of this Nottingham poet and would-be colonist. ' (Publication abstract)

'The article offers information on writer William Howitt.'

'Australians have, until very recently, taken their British inheritance for granted. This timely anthology is a collection of writings, and some cartoons, from the 19th century British periodical press, which was the popular press of its day. The pieces range from articles and book reviews to short stories and poetry, and practical advice to intending emigrants. Some of the writers are anonymous, and others bear familiar and illustrious names: Charles Dickens, Caroline Chisholm, William Thackeray, Henry Parkes, Louisa Lawson. At first, Australia was seen as an inferior, impossibly remote, antipodean place. And when the seeds of an independent political and cultural identity did begin to sprout, that identity held tightly to ideas of 'Britishness'. Readers will be surprised at the variety of views expressed here. A comic piece written just weeks after the first colonists arrived at the Swan River lampoons their pastoral ambitions and recommends the cultivation of literature instead. And there is trenchant criticism of the colonial position on land rights and of the prevailing male ethos. Australia Imagined presents some of the earliest blueprints for Australian identity-water resources, the status of the Aboriginal people, immigration, the dominance of sport in the national psyche-that Australians are still debating today.' (Publication summary)