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Desire, Mateship And The 'National Type': Vance Palmer's Legend For Sanderson, Antonio Simoes Da Silva

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

If we are to believe his critics Vance Palmer's Legend for Sanderson was not his most successful novel. Indeed Vivian Smith, one of Palmer's most perceptive, persistent and patient critics, has gone so far as to suggest that it 'is a tired book'. lt is also generally left out of discussions of Palmer's work in literary histories of Australian writing. Thus it is, for example, the only one of Palmer's major works not discussed by Ken Goodwin in his A History of Australian Literature. And, although they mention it, neither Peter Pierce in 'Literary Forms in Australian Literature' nor …