His novel explicitly deals with the massacres of Aborigines by settlers. It was less successful than his earlier work, "partly because inferior, but also because he courageously and accurately portrayed horrific mass-murders of Aborigines by police and pastoralists. The public was not ready for such honesty."
Source: G. K. Jenkin, 'Newland, Simpson (1835–1925)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988, pp 10–12.
