Major public occasions give rise to major public gestures that, whether they be speeches to nations, functions for visiting dignitaries or twice yearly honors lists, are fairly predictable affairs. The Literature of Western Australia is one of the Way 79 series of 14 volumes issued to mark the 150^th Anniversary Celebrations of Western Australia, and to judge from the listed titles they cover, or purport to cover, nearly every conceivable natural and human area from ‘Aborigines of the West' through to the state's most recent industrial, commercial and mining activities.