Frank Fox

“ A hedonistic joy in life, a disrespect for authority, a wit tinged with cruelty, a freakish humour founded on wild exaggeration—those are the qualities which outcrop most often in exploring the fields of contemporary Australian literature. ”

“ A distinctively Australian literary magazine, The Lone Hand, faded away after a period of apparently vigorous life.
Australian letters suffer from diffused energy. There are numberless writers of some ability, but no commanding figures. The future holds out a hope of Australian work of the first rank, inspired perhaps by the “bush”—the mysterious Neolithic-age forests, hills and plains—perhaps by the giant work of the early explorers, perhaps by the extremely fluid social conditions of a young country full of self-confidence as it grapples with the old, old problems of civilization. ”

“ At a later epoch, when there was less promising material, there came the beginning of a characteristic Australian literature giving great promise which as yet has not been fulfilled. The people—bred from the wilder and more enterprising of English, Scottish and Irish stock, responding to the influence of the bountiful, sometimes fierce, sunshine, and to conditions of life which are singularly free from any bonds of convention and tend to the levelling of social conditions have departed somewhat from the home type. ”