Cirrus@Austlit

'The literary production of women in Queensland from Separation to World War II records and reflects on various aspects of colonial life and Australian nationhood in a period when white women's participation in public life and letters was steadily increasing. Unease with the colonial experience underpins many of the key themes of this body of work: the difficulty of finding a literary voice in a new land, a conflicted sense of place, the linking of masculinity with violence, and the promotion of racial purity. This chapter will explore how white women writers – for there were no published Indigenous women writers in this era – responded to the conditions of living and writing in Queensland prior to the social and cultural changes initiated by World War II.' (Extract)