Author's Foreword: It so happened that while I was editing the former 'Red Page' of book reviews for the
Bulletin, and making various anthologies, then looking after a series of 'classics' for Angus and Robertson, practically the whole broad stream of Australian literature wandered at leisure before me; and on most of it, though I had never consciously set out to become an expert in these waters, I was impelled to set down my impressions. This book is a selection of those impressions as they appeared in reviews, essays, and introductions.... except for a note on Christina Stead (q.v.), I have not reprinted any material from my earlier book of criticism,
The Flesh and the Spirit, published in 1948 .... ([2]).