'There are remarkably few Collected Letters in the annals of Australian writing. Although important selections of correspondence by Henry Lawson, Christina Stead, Patrick White, Joseph Furphy and Hugh McCrae have been published in recent years, explorers, politicians, scientists and ecclesiastics have generally fared better than writers. Australian archives are crammed with letters of great importance to an understanding of the country since 1788, and The Oxford Book of Australian Letters, a sampler and a guide, indicates how wide ranging and varied this material is. Many of the letters appear in print for the first time.' (Introduction)
