The Old Bulletin Reader

The best stories from The Bulletin 1881-1901

Lansdowne Press, 1974, ISBN 0701801794, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, previous owners inscription whited out on title page, dustjacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with minor rubbing and chipping to edges and corners (see photographs)

“In his introduction to this collection of the best stories published in The Bulletin between 1881 and 1901, the famed editor to the journal, A. G. Stephens, wrote; ‘What country can offer to writers better material than Australia.  Every man who roams the Australian wilderness is a potential knight of Romance.  The marvels of the adventurous are our daily commonplaces.’…
What the editor could not readily appraise is the impact of the stories today.  They are an exhilarating plunge from the sophisticated, ill-tempered society of modern Australia to the robust, romantic, formative years, when the broad canvas of the country was something to marvel at and revel in.
It was a time of great missions and larger-than-life characters and situations – with the country an ‘alchemists’ crucible, with red fumes rising, and strange odours, and a dazzling gleam caught by moments through the bubble and seeth.’
The Bulletin collection ranges wide across the drama and humour of Australian life, and across the continent itself, from the rough and heroic world of the bush to the striving societies of the young cities.
Some of the writers have become household names of Australian Literature – Henry Lawson, A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson, Victor J. Daley, Ernest Favene, Edward Dyson, Arthur H. Davis – while others have only the stories contained here as a memorial to their vitality.”