Louisa Anne Meredith (née Twamley), also known as Mrs. Charles Meredith, holds an important position in the colonial literature of Australia. As the first Englishwoman to write engagingly for a popular international audience about her travels and life in the new world, Meredith was Australia's first professional female writer. Her firsthand impressions of Australian nature and of colonial family life were disseminated to a sizable public in England and throughout Australia's colonial population, before all of whom she championed the causes of conservation and animal rights. Her work evidences an infectious delight in and respect for animals and plants, as well as a detailed eye for the humorous, practical aspects of domestic life in the harsh colonial landscape. Meredith illustrated her own writings with drawings of animals and plants, but she considered herself an author first and an artist second, and as a writer of personal...