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All That Swagger

All That Swagger has been acclaimed by critics as one of the finest Australian novels yet written. The story grows from the core outwards from one who feels the magic of Australia. The characters are rooted in the soil, the forest, as the early pioneers actually were. One theme stresses character — that fortitude of purpose, hardihood courage, integrity, which must forever be the foundation of any sound and ethical State, or state of society.

It presents the heroic single-handedness with which the unique Australian continent has been explored, surveyed, fenced, cleared, ploughed, and is now guarded by a virile people.

Here is a vast canvas, State-wide, and as long as history itself -insofar as it contains the portrayal of life and development in this outpost of the British Empire. Skill and circumstance have prolifically combined in the production. The writer moves living pieces on the squares of a mammoth chessboard, and she plays the game in a way that shows clearly that she understands the gambit of life and all its variations.

All That Swagger is all Australian in every word. Only an Australian could have written it.

(From the dust-jacket blurb of the 1947 hardback edition).

No ISBN,

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 418
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780207149986
  • Genres
  • australia, novels, classics, literature
  • Release date
  • 1986