y separately published work icon A Letter From Sydney The Principal Town of Australasia : & Other Writings on Colonization collected work   correspondence  
Issue Details: First known date: 1929... 1929 A Letter From Sydney The Principal Town of Australasia : & Other Writings on Colonization
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

This work was first published as a series of letters in London by the Morning Chronicle. Wakefield falsely claimed to be a disgruntled settler writing from Sydney when in fact he was in prison for the kidnapping of a school girl.

Wakefield proposed the sale of crown lands in small units at a "sufficient price" (fixed and modest), rather than the granting of large tracts free. The proceeds would pay for sending emigrants from Great Britain, who were to be equally divided by sex and to represent a cross-section of English society.

Notes

  • Introduction by Professor R.C. Mills.
  • Original publication (1829) described (p.vii) as edited by Robert Gouger (a founder of South Australia) but also attributed to Robert Yonger (p. xiii).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

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Works about this Work

Fiction and Fakements in Colonial Australia Jonathan Lamb , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Studies , September vol. 23 no. 3 2020; (p. 360-370)

'The imaginations of convicts in Australia became attuned to the pairing of opposites and this led to strange tensions in their way of representing things. On Norfolk Island the meanings of words were reversed, so that ‘good’ meant ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’ meant ‘beautiful’. This undermining of official meanings produced the argot called the ‘flash’ or ‘kiddy’ language of the colony. Designed at first to keep private sentiments from being inspected, it eventually supported a system of dissident actions called ‘cross-work’ or ‘cross doings’. One word loomed large amidst these inversions: ‘fakement’, meaning booty, forgery or deceit. The verb has more extensive meanings: rob, wound, shatter; ‘fake your slangs’ means break your shackles. It also meant performing a fiction and accepting the consequences of it.' (Publication abstract)
An Interesting Page of Australian History 1929 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 20 May vol. 1 no. 6 1929; (p. 183)
— Review of A Letter From Sydney The Principal Town of Australasia : & Other Writings on Colonization Edward Gibbon Wakefield , 1929 collected work correspondence
The South Australian Land Bubble Marcus Clarke , 1890 single work essay
— Appears in: The Austral Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke : Together with a Biography and Monograph of the Deceased Author 1890; (p. 141-148) 'Among the many bubbles of speculation that, reflecting in their shining sides prismatic worlds of fortune, have been destined to burst in the most commonplace of soapsuds, it would be unfair to class the speculation-born colony of South Australia...' (141)
An Interesting Page of Australian History 1929 single work review
— Appears in: All About Books , 20 May vol. 1 no. 6 1929; (p. 183)
— Review of A Letter From Sydney The Principal Town of Australasia : & Other Writings on Colonization Edward Gibbon Wakefield , 1929 collected work correspondence
The South Australian Land Bubble Marcus Clarke , 1890 single work essay
— Appears in: The Austral Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke : Together with a Biography and Monograph of the Deceased Author 1890; (p. 141-148) 'Among the many bubbles of speculation that, reflecting in their shining sides prismatic worlds of fortune, have been destined to burst in the most commonplace of soapsuds, it would be unfair to class the speculation-born colony of South Australia...' (141)
Fiction and Fakements in Colonial Australia Jonathan Lamb , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Studies , September vol. 23 no. 3 2020; (p. 360-370)

'The imaginations of convicts in Australia became attuned to the pairing of opposites and this led to strange tensions in their way of representing things. On Norfolk Island the meanings of words were reversed, so that ‘good’ meant ‘bad’ and ‘ugly’ meant ‘beautiful’. This undermining of official meanings produced the argot called the ‘flash’ or ‘kiddy’ language of the colony. Designed at first to keep private sentiments from being inspected, it eventually supported a system of dissident actions called ‘cross-work’ or ‘cross doings’. One word loomed large amidst these inversions: ‘fakement’, meaning booty, forgery or deceit. The verb has more extensive meanings: rob, wound, shatter; ‘fake your slangs’ means break your shackles. It also meant performing a fiction and accepting the consequences of it.' (Publication abstract)
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Last amended 9 May 2006 09:45:24
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