The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Loder examines the influence of the nineteenth century continental novel on Richardon's composition of Maurice Guest. Loder demonstrates that, while elements of the content and narrative technique of Flaubert, Stendhal and Dostoevsky can be found, J.P. Jacobsen's Niels Lyhne (which Richardson translated) is the most significant influence.
This first substantial discussion of The Broad Arrow highlights melodramatic formulae that often produce "excessive emphasis" on some details at the expense of others. Poole concludes that the main interest of the novel lies in the possibility that Marcus Clarke read it before writing His Natural Life.