The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature ed. William H. Wilde (1994): 638 observes that the novel deals 'with urban middle-class families attempting to overcome the stigma of convict antecedents...In Our Cousins in Australia the Philipson family leads cousin Mark and Christina Dare into immoral behaviour and, eventually, financial ruin. In this case the Philipsons, whose parents are both former convicts, are irrevocably degenerate and carry the additional burden of Jewishness.'
