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'In Australia there are very words so misunderstood or so unwelcome as the word ‘criticism’. In use it has become misapplied and abused until it connotes destruction, so that new we have little that counts in the nature of real criticism, that is, not wholly destructive but careful analysis, constructive and helpful.' (Source: Introduction)
'When Maurice Guest was first published in 1908, it made, except upon the discerning few, little or no impression. Some few who had noted at once its fine technique and upon whom the character of Louise Dufrayer had left an indefinable sensation, said one to another, as Mr. Baldwin did of Mary Webb's works, "Have you read Maurice Guest?" But that was all. Little more was heard of its author, Henry Handel Richardson, till in 1917 she launched right in the full spate of war the first volume of what was to be her masterly planned trilogy on Australia, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony...'(Source: Introduction)
