John Martineau spent fifteen months in the Australian colonies around the period 1867-1868. During his visit, he wrote most of his 'Letters from Australia', originally published in the London Spectator under the signature 'Wild Ass', and later collected into a single volume Letters from Australia (1869).
Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing
The majority of John Martineau's (1834-1910) Letters from Australia were written in Australia in 1867 and published in Spectator. He acknowledged that his travel adventures lacked excitement, even though he longed for sensation, the example used being encounters with bushrangers. This first-person narrative is conversational in style, and included descriptions of the voyage to Australia, the cities, squatting and bushranging, and the relationship between Australia and New Zealand, but does not have an epistolary style despite the fact that the work is structured through letters. The letters described the voyage to Australia, Melbourne, Ballarat, Tasmania, Sydney, and colonial politics, with particular emphasis on the "loyalty" of Australia to Britain and the attractions of the colonies for emigrants.
