Cirrus@Austlit

'In the brief four years between the publication of her first volume of short stories and her death in 1986, Olga Masters was celebrated as one of Australia's most powerful and original writers. She won a National Book Council award and was shortlisted for another, and was published in the United States, France and Italy. She wrote two novels and three collections of stories, the third published posthumously. Gathered now in one volume are all the stories from The Home Girls and A Long Time Dying and those she had completed for The Rose Fancier, tough, honest stories that portray rural and suburban life with compassion and unsparing observation. ' (Publication summary)

'This anthology, unprecedented for its subject, gathers together twenty-nine of the sharpest and most entertaining stories written by Australian women from the early nineteenth century to the late 1990s. Selected by acclaimed critic and writer Kerryn Goldsworthy--editor of the highly successful Australian Love Stories--the stories cover a wide range of styles and subject matter. Included in the collection are the works of well-known writers such as Henry Handel Richardson and Christina Stead, those of contemporary authors Elizabeth Jolley, Beverley Farmer, Kate Grenville, Carmel Bird, and Beth Yahp, and a generous selection from the work of Asian, Aboriginal, and European Australian writers. With a strong local or regional emphasis the volume vividly moves readers from Thea Astley's North Queensland and Carmel Bird's Tasmania to Helen Garner's Carlton and Fitzroy. This volume is sure to be the definitive introduction for years to come to the rich and accomplished tradition of fiction by Australian women.' (Publication summary) 

'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.