Patricia Clarke argues that the Queensland scenes of Louisa Atkinson's novel Tressa's Resolve are 'clearly based on her husband's [James Calvert's] recollections of the harsh nature of the country he travelled over during his historic fifteen months journey to Port Essington [with Ludwig Leichhardt in 1844-45] and on his scepticism of the grandiose plans for settlement, particularly of the district that was deceptively named 'The Plains of Promise'.' (28)
