Cirrus@Austlit

'...To say that the publication of this book will realise the hope of Charles Harpur's life and establish him as the bard of his country, "Australia's first great poet", would be to mock the love and devotion that have given his work to the world, and, indeed, the dead poet himself. Great poet he was not, and there is nothing about his poetry, except perhaps its roughness, specially of Australia. He had no such poet's eye either for the outer or the inner nature of his native land as the vision of both that passed into his brother bards' very being, and alone made him the poet that he was... there is no doubt that Charles Harpur may claim true minstrel-kindred as one of the first and best of the early singers of his native land.'