AustLit

No trace of the manuscript 'Letty O'Brien' has been found. The publication in the Australasian Chronicle in February 1843 seems to be too early for the 'Letty O'Brien' manuscript to be derived from 'Voluntary Information from the People of New South Wales' which is described by Eneas MacKenzie, Caroline Chisholm's biographer, as 'upwards of six-hundred biographies' collected by Caroline Chisholm 'as a fair example of the working classes' (126). Especially as Mackenzie reports that Caroline Chisholm was accompanied on her collecting by her husband, 'who joined her from India in 1845.' (127). However Caroline Chisholm journeyed fairly widely in the settled rural areas of colonial New South Wales in the early 1840s and the inspiration for the manuscript 'Letty O'Brien' may have come through her travels.

The reference in the extract to what was possibly an actual newspaper (though it does not seem to be the Australasian Chronicle) is interesting. Caroline Chisholm was dependent on the newspapers of the day to circulate her ideas and she received some support from the colonial press. The editor of the Australasian Chronicle, W. A. Duncan, may also have relished publishing Caroline Chisholm's positive view of the role of a newspaper in the daily life of settlers.

Source: Eneas Mackenzie, Memoirs of Mrs. Caroline Chisholm: With an Account of Her Philanthropic Labours, in India, Australia and England, To Which is Added A History of the Family Colonization Loan Society; Also the Question, Who Ought to Emigrate? Answered (1852)