The Legend of the Nineties by Vance Palmer

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Foxing to foredges, preliminary and back pages. Dust jacket has light creasing at edges.

There has grown up a legend of the Australian 1890s as a period of intense artistic and political activity... a scattered people with origins in all corners of the British Islands and in Europe, had a sudden vision of themselves as a nation, with a character of their own and a historic role to play and this vision set fruitful creative forces in motion.

Vince Palmer looks at the decade of the 90s in the light of the legend and traces the development of the myths from convict days, through the gold rushes of the 50s, the land boom of the 80s, to the disastrous economic depression of the last years of the dying century.

The works of poets and artists - Lawson, Paterson, O'Dowd, Furphy, Roberts and Streeton - reflected the nation's cultural growth, and in politics, there were impulses toward unionism, federation and self-dependence.