Cirrus@Austlit

'The writers and story-tellers included in this collection relate an important, even epic tale. They tell a story which in 1988 (white Australia's bicentennial year) rarely received attention because, while it tells of courage and love, it also focuses on killing and conquest, eccentricity and madness, and a land as hostile and murderous as it could be gentle and caring...' (Source: Preface)

'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)

'Anthropologica Incognita comprises twenty classic short stories of wild men, monster apes, weird primates, and strange races. The works are: 'The Story of TsoqélEM,' 'Two Nights in Southern Mexico,' 'Hunting of the Soko,' 'Manmat'ha,' 'A Haunt of the Jinkarras,' 'From a Simian Point of View,' 'Dankwarra: the Isle of Fear,' 'The Depths of Kyamo,' 'No-Man's-Land,' 'The Harbour-Master,' 'Found by the Missing Link,' 'In the Lower Passage,' 'Beyond the Banyans,' 'Back There in the Grass,' 'The Ape-Man,' 'The Missing Link,' 'Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family,' 'Spirit Island,' 'The Horror-Horn,' and 'The Tale of the Abu Laheeb' (Amazon).

'There has been a lot of speculative fiction written about Australia, even before colonization. The first ‘home-grown’ lost civilization story set in Australia was Oo-A-Deen, or, The Mysteries of the Interior Unveiled, published by an unknown author in the Corio Chronicle and Western Districts Advertiser, in 1847. It tells the story of an explorer who discovers a lost utopian society and falls in love with the daughter of the High Priest. With the rise in popularity of the genre thanks to such novels as Haggard’s She and King Solomon’s Mines many imitators soon followed. Thanks to the imagination of many a writer, the unexplored Australian Outback was soon populated by Atlantaeans, Lemurians, Toltecs, Classical Greeks, Ant Men, Bat People, and even the descendants of Alexander the Great’s mighty army.

'This Early Australian Science Fiction anthology is a collection of 13 tales considered to be among the most influential Australian works in the lost world genre. They are the works most referred to by researchers and academics when they evaluate Australian colonial science fiction. Some have been made available for Kindle for the very first time and are exclusive to ROH Press.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2018 ed.)

'There has been a lot of speculative fiction written about Australia, even before colonization. The first ‘home-grown’ lost civilization story set in Australia was Oo-A-Deen, or, The Mysteries of the Interior Unveiled, published by an unknown author in the Corio Chronicle and Western Districts Advertiser, in 1847. It tells the story of an explorer who discovers a lost utopian society and falls in love with the daughter of the High Priest. With the rise in popularity of the genre thanks to such novels as Haggard’s She and King Solomon’s Mines many imitators soon followed. Thanks to the imagination of many a writer, the unexplored Australian Outback was soon populated by Atlantaeans, Lemurians, Toltecs, Classical Greeks, Ant Men, Bat People, and even the descendants of Alexander the Great’s mighty army.

'This Early Australian Science Fiction anthology is a collection of 13 tales considered to be among the most influential Australian works in the lost world genre. They are the works most referred to by researchers and academics when they evaluate Australian colonial science fiction. Some have been made available for Kindle for the very first time and are exclusive to ROH Press.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (2018 ed.)