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'Impressions of Australia Felix' title page
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19th-Century Australian Travel Writing
Poet Richard Howitt (1799-1869) chronicled his voyage from England to Australia and his experiences in Van Diemen's Land and Victoria in Impressions of Australia Felix. The section recording the voyage was written in a diary form, and was punctuated with poetry by Howitt, but the account moved into a first-person narrative on Howitt’s arrival in Port Phillip. Howitt, in a poetical and descriptive tone, detailed his experiences in the colonies, and the realities of life as faced by squatters and settlers, including food, communication with Britain, the convict system, and contact with Aboriginal peoples. In the preface he attacked texts such as John Marshall's Twenty Years' Experience in Australia (1839) for being "cheap delusions" which failed to inform potential emigrants of the facts of colonial life. Howitt stated that an aim of his work was to inform the public of the hardships of settling in a new country. Richard’s older brother was writer William Howitt, and his nephew, William’s son, was ethnographer Alfred William Howitt.
'In 1839, with his brother Godfrey and other family members, Richard Howitt (1799-1869) emigrated to Australia as a settler but returned to England in 1844, disillusioned. His experiences are recorded in Impressions of Australia Felix, during Four Years’ Residence in that Colony (1845), an interesting mixture of prose and his own poetry, as well as occasional quotations from other published poets.
'Like a poetic talisman, William Wordsworth’s name recurs again and again in both the poetry and the prose of Richard Howitt, both directly and indirectly. The focus of this article will be on two poems addressing an English daisy discovered in Australia by Howitt, to consider them in the light of four daisy poems published by Wordsworth between 1807 and 1815.
'Finally, this article will argue that the power of memory and recollection, explored through Howitt’s poetry, would prove to be the undoing of this Nottingham poet and would-be colonist. ' (Publication abstract)
'In 1839, with his brother Godfrey and other family members, Richard Howitt (1799-1869) emigrated to Australia as a settler but returned to England in 1844, disillusioned. His experiences are recorded in Impressions of Australia Felix, during Four Years’ Residence in that Colony (1845), an interesting mixture of prose and his own poetry, as well as occasional quotations from other published poets.
'Like a poetic talisman, William Wordsworth’s name recurs again and again in both the poetry and the prose of Richard Howitt, both directly and indirectly. The focus of this article will be on two poems addressing an English daisy discovered in Australia by Howitt, to consider them in the light of four daisy poems published by Wordsworth between 1807 and 1815.
'Finally, this article will argue that the power of memory and recollection, explored through Howitt’s poetry, would prove to be the undoing of this Nottingham poet and would-be colonist. ' (Publication abstract)
