Print this page Wandering Through Oceania: Australian Travel-Adventure Authors of the 1930s

With titles like Try Anything Once, Rolling Down the Lachlan and To the Isles of Spice, Frank Clune wrote books that appealed to Australian ‘armchair’ adventurers. In this course, we examine Clune’s writing, alongside those of Ion Idriess’ Drums of Mer and Mary Durack’s T_ime and Tide: The Story in Pictures of Roebuck Bay, N.W. Australia_. We examine the spirit of adventure that motivated these writers, the Australian market, and attitudes to indigenous people of the places they visited.

DELIVERY MODE

• Online

COURSE OUTLINE

• The adventure-travel genre of the first half of the 20th century
• Australian writers, Frank Clune, Ion Idriess and Mary Durack
• Other similar writers of the time
• Frank Hurley’s travels to Papua New Guinea as a photographer
• Case study of books from each of the authors
• Attitudes to indigenous people, including advocating for their further recognition.
• Popular reception; Changing post war market

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Understand the appeal of Australian/oceanic adventure writing to society in the 1930s and 40’s, often as a form of escapism
2. Appreciate the motivations and achievements of key authors
3. Appreciate how attitudes have changed, comparing a modern travel book to these of the mid-20th century