AustLit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

Francis Adams (Francis William Lauderdale 1862-1893) —poet, novelist, commentator and radical—immigrated to Melbourne in 1884 due to illness. In Australia Adams wrote for the Brisbane Courier, for William Lane's Boomerang, and for the Bulletin, and tutored on up-country stations. A prolific writer, Adams' works include Leicester: An Autobiography (1885), republished as A Child of the Age (1894); Australian Essays (1886); Poetical Works (1887); The Australians (1893); and Essays in Modernity (1899). He is best-known for his poetry collection Songs of the Army of the Night (1888). The Australians consists of a series of articles that Adams wrote on Australian social life that were published in the Fortnightly Review. This travel narrative describes the landscape, coastline, cities, and the various types of colonists in Australia. The impetus of this work is to facilitate in England and Australia an understanding of each other: Adams notes that the English are only aware of Australian sporting heroes and attempts to remedy this by providing descriptions of the everyday Australian man. Following a detailed description of squatters, selectors and bush people, Adams concludes his work on a political note, expressing his views on "The Land Question."