This book is a unique exploration of the many character types vividly portrayed in colonial Australian fiction.
Over the course of the nineteenth century a remarkable array of types appeared – and disappeared – in Australian literature: the swagman, the larrikin, the colonial detective, the bushranger, the “currency lass”, the squatter, and more. Some had a powerful influence on the colonies’ developing sense of identity; others were more ephemeral. But all had a role to play in shaping and reflecting the social and economic circumstances of life in the colonies.
In Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy, Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver explore the genres in which these characters flourished: the squatter novel, the bushranger adventure, colonial detective stories, the swagman’s yarn, the Australian girl’s romance. Authors as diverse as Catherine Helen Spence, Rosa Praed, Henry Kingsley, Anthony Trollope, Henry Lawson, Miles Franklin, Barbara Baynton, Rolf Boldrewood, Mary Fortune and Marcus Clarke were fascinated by colonial character types, and brought them vibrantly to life.
As this book shows, colonial Australian character types are fluid, contradictory and often unpredictable. When we look closely, they have the potential to challenge our assumptions about fiction, genre and national identity.
About the authors
Ken Gelder is Professor of English and co-Director of the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne.
Rachael Weaver is an ARC Senior Research Fellow in English and the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne.
Contents
Introduction: The Colonial Economy and the Production of Colonial Character Types
1 The Reign of the Squatter
2 Bushrangers
3 Colonial Australian Detectives
4 Bush Types and Metropolitan Types
5 The Australian Girl
Works Cited
Index
Sydney Studies in Australian Literature
The Sydney Studies in Australian Literature series publishes original, peer-reviewed research in the field of Australian literary studies. It offers well-researched and engagingly written re-evaluations of the nature and importance of Australian literature, and aims to reinvigorate its study both locally and internationally. It will be of interest to those researching, studying and teaching in the diverse fields of Australian literary studies.
Other available titles:
- Alex Miller: The Ruin of Time, Robert Dixon
- Contemporary Australian Literature: A World Not Yet Dead, Nicholas Birns
- Shirley Hazzard: New Critical Essays, ed. Brigitta Olubas
- The Fiction of Tim Winton: Earthed and Sacred, Lyn McCredden
- Coming in late 2017 – Elizabeth Harrower: Critical Essays, Ken Gelder and Rachel Weaver
Ken Gelder is Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne. He has been a visiting fellow at University College, London, and the University of Edinburgh. Ken currently teaches courses in modern and contemporary literature, popular/genre fiction, Australian literature and subcultural studies. His research interests include Australian and Indigenous literatures and cultures, colonial and post-colonial issues, cultural politics, genre fiction, history and analysis of popular culture, lifestyle, postcolonialism and globalisation in literature and culture, and subcultures.
Rachael Weaver is an ARC Research Fellow in the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. She is author of The Criminal of the Century (Arcadia/ASP 2006), and co-editor with Ken Gelder of four anthologies of colonial Australian popular fiction published by Melbourne University Publishing.
