Vance Palmer, whose career spans the period from the Australia of the 1890s to the Australia of the 1950s, was one of the most representative figures of the literary culture of his time. The foremost man of letters of his day, he was known as a novelist, dramatist, short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor as well as a political and social commentator and interpreter. He was a man of intellectual force and integrity, and a study of his life and work exemplifies to an unusual degree the struggle that was central to the whole development of writing in his country--the struggle between an imported tradition and attitudes and the search for a viable local tradition. Though much of his enormous output is now only of historical interest, an understanding of Australia between the two world wars is greatly enhanced by a study of his writings.

Edward Vivian Palmer...