Fiction

Four reissued Australian novels

Delys Bird reviews Judah Waten, Jean Devanny, Vance Palmer and Louis Stone

by Delys Bird •

December 2002-January 2003, no. 247

Fiction

Four reissued Australian novels

Delys Bird reviews Judah Waten, Jean Devanny, Vance Palmer and Louis Stone

by Delys Bird •

December 2002-January 2003, no. 247

This is a particularly interesting group of reissued ‘classics’, spanning just over fifty years in twentieth-century Australian literature. Although they have very different fictional styles, all are realist or social realist novels, and their politics and preoccupations are not dissimilar. Each is concerned with working people’s lives, differing contrasts between city and country life, and aspects of class.

Delys Bird

Delys Bird is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia. She recently retired as the co-editor of Westerly. Her publications include a co-edited book of essays on Elizabeth Jolley’s fiction, Elizabeth Jolley: New Critical Essays and a critical edition of nine of Jolley’s radio plays, Off the Air: Elizabeth Jolley’s Radio Plays. She has published widely on Australian women’s writing.