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Issue Details: First known date: 2009... 2009 Introduction
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''When I look at the map and see what an awfully ugly-looking country Australia is, I feel as if I want to go there to see if it cannot be changed into a more beautiful form.' Oscar Wilde never did get to Australia, either to change it or be changed by it. For him it remained that 'ugly-looking' shape on a map and little more. But the writers in this book did make the journey, not to try to change the way it looked but for a great variety of other reasons: they came for scientific research; to sort out difficult children; to make money from lecturing; to escape demanding women back home; to finding themselves; to shop; to see doctors; and as part of their jobs.'

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    y separately published work icon Brief Encounters : Literary Travellers in Australia 1836-1939 Susannah Fullerton , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2009 Z1592655 2009 selected work biography travel

    'Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, countless distinguished writers made the long and arduous voyage across the seas to Australia. They came to give lecture tours and make money, to sort out difficult children sent here to be out of the way; for health, for science, to escape demanding spouses back home, or simply to satisfy a sense of adventure.

    In 1890, for example, Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife Fanny arrived at Circular Quay after a dramatic sea voyage only to be refused entry at the Victoria, one of Sydney's most elegant hotels. Stevenson threw a tantrum, but was forced to go to a cheaper, less fussy establishment. Next day, the Victoria's manager, recognising the famous author from a picture in the paper, rushed to find Stevenson and beg him to return. He did not.

    In Brief Encounters, renowned author and speaker Susannah Fullerton examines a diverse array of writers including Charles Darwin, Rudyard Kipling, Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, DH Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, HG Wells, Agatha Christie and Jack London to discover what they did when they got here, what their opinion was of Australia and Australians, how the public and media reacted to them, and how their future works were shaped or influenced by this country.' (Publisher's website)

         Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2009     pg. ix-xx
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