Cirrus@Austlit

'Poems, stories, letters and extracts from novels, plays and journals present a great variety of responses to Australia and to the art of writing. Items have been arranged into 12 groupings that reflect different ways of seeing the material of Australian writing. Each section has its own introduction. Problems are explained, theories and contexts for a wider understanding are offered. The book includes biographical guides to all authors and a full chronological table of events in the literary history of Australia.'   (Publication summary)

'This is a comprehensive survey of Australian poetic achievement, ranging from early colonial and indigenous verse to contemporary work, from the major poets to those who deserve to be better recognised.' (Provided by the publisher).

Publisher's blurb: 'This is a pioneering work published for the first time in its complete form. At a time when Gothic studies still concentrated on traditional European and American Gothic, the author laid the foundation for the exploration of how Gothic conventions were transported and transformed in places remote from Europe.

Through a detailed reading of 19th- and 20th-century examples of Canadian and Australian Gothic fiction, this work demonstrates the transformative potential of a once much-maligned mode in what were arguably neglected national literatures.'