A Dreamer single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 1902... 1902 A Dreamer
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Bush Studies Barbara Baynton , London : Duckworth , 1902 Z820571 1902 selected work short story (taught in 12 units)

    'Bush Studies is famous for its stark realism—for not romanticising bush life, instead showing all its bleakness and harshness.

    'Economic of style, influenced by the great nineteenth-century Russian novelists, Barbara Baynton’s short-story collection presents the Australian bush as dangerous and isolating for the women who inhabit it.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)

    London : Duckworth , 1902
    pg. 1-14
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cobbers Barbara Baynton , London : Duckworth , 1917 Z820761 1917 selected work short story London : Duckworth , 1917 pg. 15-32
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Bush Studies Barbara Baynton , London : Duckworth , 1902 Z820571 1902 selected work short story (taught in 12 units)

    'Bush Studies is famous for its stark realism—for not romanticising bush life, instead showing all its bleakness and harshness.

    'Economic of style, influenced by the great nineteenth-century Russian novelists, Barbara Baynton’s short-story collection presents the Australian bush as dangerous and isolating for the women who inhabit it.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)

    Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1965
    pg. 45-53
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Barbara Baynton Barbara Baynton , Sally Krimmer (editor), Alan Lawson (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1980 Z181654 1980 selected work novel poetry short story criticism correspondence biography St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1980 pg. 4-10
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years Leonie Kramer (editor), Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 Z219820 1985 anthology poetry short story Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 pg. 431-436
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon From the Verandah : Stories of Love and Landscape by Nineteenth Century Australian Women Fiona Giles (editor), Fitzroy Ringwood : McPhee Gribble Penguin , 1987 Z373115 1987 anthology short story extract Fitzroy Ringwood : McPhee Gribble Penguin , 1987 pg. 160-166
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of 19th Century Australian Literature Michael Ackland (editor), Ringwood : Penguin , 1993 Z203182 1993 anthology short story poetry extract prose criticism biography humour satire crime Ringwood : Penguin , 1993 pg. 342-347
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories Ken Gelder (editor), Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1994 Z356827 1994 anthology short story crime young adult 'Did Australian ghosts suffer from a cultural cringe? Dr Ken Gelder indicates in the introduction to another fascinating OUP anthology that early ghost stories were essentially a "transported genre" that looked back to England as their source. Thus John Lang's well-known story "The Ghost upon the Rail" is based upon a case of murder for post-convict wealth. Gelder argues that Australian ghost stories possess their own ironical flavour, but the gothic tradition has to be resolved in outback locations or deserted mining towns, as in David Rowbotham's "A Schoolie and the Ghost".'

    'Gelder relies heavily on Victorian and Edwardian writers, such as Marcus Clarke, Barbara Baynton and Hume Nisbet, as if unsure as to the nature of contemporary ghosts. It is interesting to see that Australia's science fiction writers, such as Lucy Sussex and Terry Dowling, provide the link between the past and the present. Dowling's "The Daeman Street Ghost-Trap" effectively uses traditional settings to link ghosts with a current horror, namely cancer. Several bunyip stories remind us of a particular Antipodean creature to stand against the assorted European manifestations.'

    (Colin Steele, SF Commentary No 77, p.55).


    Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1994
    pg. 157-162
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Bush Studies Barbara Baynton , London : Duckworth , 1902 Z820571 1902 selected work short story (taught in 12 units)

    'Bush Studies is famous for its stark realism—for not romanticising bush life, instead showing all its bleakness and harshness.

    'Economic of style, influenced by the great nineteenth-century Russian novelists, Barbara Baynton’s short-story collection presents the Australian bush as dangerous and isolating for the women who inhabit it.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)

    Sydney : University of Sydney Library, Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service , 1997
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Classic Australian Short Stories Maggie Pinkney (editor), Noble Park : Five Mile Press , 2001 Z864787 2001 anthology short story Noble Park : Five Mile Press , 2001 pg. 224-232
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction Ken Gelder (editor), Rachael Weaver (editor), Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2007 Z1415120 2007 anthology short story extract horror mystery science fiction historical fiction children's (taught in 7 units)

    'This anthology collects the best examples of Australian gothic short stories from colonial times. Demonic bird cries, grisly corpses, ghostly women and psychotic station-owners populate a colonial landscape which is the stuff of nightmares.

    'In stories by Marcus Clarke, Mary Fortune and Henry Lawson, the colonial homestead is wracked by haunted images of murder and revenge. Settlers are disoriented and traumatised as they stumble into forbidden places and explorers disappear, only to return as ghostly figures with terrible tales to tell. These compelling stories are the dark underside to the usual story of colonial progress, promise and nation-building, and reveal just how vivid the gothic imagination is at the heart of Australian fiction.' (Publication summary)

    Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2007
    pg. 215-222
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of the Road Delia Falconer (editor), Camberwell : Viking , 2008 Z1532526 2008 anthology short story biography travel

    'Australia is a nation of drivers. We spend more time behind the wheel than almost anyone else, on fast highways, lonely bush tracks, jammed city lanes and suburban streets. The road is the place where the great dramas of our lives unfold, the route to our greatest pleasures as well as our worst nightmares. It is sexy, dangerous and unnerving.

    'In this landmark collection, acclaimed novelist and essayist Delia Falconer brings together some of our very best writing on every aspect of the road.' (Publisher's blurb)

    Camberwell : Viking , 2008
    pg. 128-136

Works about this Work

Pioneer Writer Sheds Light on a Wild Side Patricia Stone , 2001 single work biography
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 31 May 2001; (p. 11)
Barbara Baynton: An Australian Jocasta Joan Kirkby , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , December vol. 34 no. 4 1989; (p. 114-124)
The Railway in Australian Literature Russell McDougall , 1987 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian-Canadian Studies , vol. 5 no. 1 1987; (p. 13-20) World Literature Written in English , Spring vol. 28 no. 1 1988; (p. 75-82)
The Teeth Father Naked at Last : The Short Stories of Barbara Baynton Thea Astley , 1979 single work criticism
— Appears in: Three Australian Writers : Essays On Bruce Dawe, Barbara Baynton and Patrick White 1979; (p. 12-22)
Barbara Baynton: An Australian Jocasta Joan Kirkby , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , December vol. 34 no. 4 1989; (p. 114-124)
The Teeth Father Naked at Last : The Short Stories of Barbara Baynton Thea Astley , 1979 single work criticism
— Appears in: Three Australian Writers : Essays On Bruce Dawe, Barbara Baynton and Patrick White 1979; (p. 12-22)
The Railway in Australian Literature Russell McDougall , 1987 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian-Canadian Studies , vol. 5 no. 1 1987; (p. 13-20) World Literature Written in English , Spring vol. 28 no. 1 1988; (p. 75-82)
Pioneer Writer Sheds Light on a Wild Side Patricia Stone , 2001 single work biography
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 31 May 2001; (p. 11)
Last amended 6 Nov 2007 09:13:38
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