AustLit

'In Kenneth Mackay s 1895 admonitory tale, Britain s attention and military forces are diverted by a Russian attack on India, and Australia is left defenseless. The Russians lead the invasion force, but for readers of the Victorian Age, the real horror is the use of Chinese troops. This sweeping speculative story foreshadows the rapid growth of nationalism in the 20th Century. It also takes remarkable risks with its subject matter and its audience, challenging both literary and moral conventions.'

Source: Publisher's blurb, Wesleyan University Press 2003 edition.

'Praed’s interest in the relationship between culture and vampiric possession finds its most extensive and complex treatment in Affinities, which presents a portrait of Oscar Wilde in the guise of the psychic, or moral vampire.'

Source: McCann, Andrew. Rosa Praed and the Vampire Aesthete. USA: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

'Scarcely out of print since the early 1870s, For the Term of His Natural Life has provided successive generations with a vivid account of a brutal phase of colonial life. The main focus of this great convict novel is the complex interaction between those in power and those who suffer, made meaningful because of its hero's struggle against his wrongful imprisonment. Elements of romance, incidents of family life and passages of scenic description both relieve and give emphasis to the tragedy that forms its heart.' (Publication summary : Penguin Books 2009)