SOURCE: Mitchell, Adrian. “Fiction.” In The Oxford History of Australian Literature, edited by Leonie Kramer, pp. 27-172. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1981.

In the following excerpt, Mitchell points to the major Australian fiction writers of the 1890s typically associated with the Bulletin—particularly Henry Lawson and Joseph Furphy.

In most views of Australian literary history, the Bulletin is the exclusive forum for the new realism, the spawning ground for a new authentic Australian Literature. The antagonism of the realist towards romance was not just a formal objection, but a reflection of ardent nationalism that welled up as Australia moved towards federation. The novel of manners was not authentic because it recognised English conventions, both in social behaviour and literary accomplishment. The Bulletin above all required original writing; there was to be no imitation of the old Anglo-Australian conventions. What resulted was the substitution of one convention for another, the...