Charles Harpur is now widely regarded as Australia's most important nineteenth-century poet, and he will probably be classed one day among the major thinkers of the pre-Federation period. The scope and volume of his writings are impressive, particularly given the relative isolation and limited resources that characterized most of his life. He contributed verse and prose to debate on the crucial social issues of the day, including land rights, racism, transportation, freedom of religious worship and education, constitutional reform, and the interdependence of the colonies and mother country. Moreover, he was deeply concerned with fundamental moral, religious, and philosophical questions, rigorously defining his position against the dominant metaphysical codes and models of the past and present, and seeking to draw from them a working philosophy that would guide the future course of a fledgling nation. In poetry his range is similarly eclectic. He read widely and left detailed...