Frank Moorhouse traces Vernon Knowles's life through papers held in the National Archives of Australia and the Australian National Library. Moorhouse charts the course of Knowles's literary career, his funding by the Commonwealth Literary Fund (CLF) and his eventual destitution. Moorhouse, noting the obscurity into which Knowles has fallen, concludes that Knowles's writing does not, in his opinion, warrant re-publication nor do his manuscripts require publication.
Moorhouse, however, commends the CLF as the real 'hero' of the arts funding story. The CLF ' exhibited the very best of attitudes in arts patronage: they affirmed the imagination at its most unconventional; they trusted the judgement of the author as to his needs ... and at the same time tried to truly assess and meet his needs; they were not dissuaded from their decision by the scandal of difference'.