Ken Gelder

And the novel of education in the Northern Hemisphere is always about someone who

begins in a provincial way in the country somewhere, in a small village or a small town, and then as he grows up or she grows up, makes his or her way to the city, to the metropolitan centre, and becomes rich.

Or if he does become rich, it may only be for a short while, but certainly has the experience of gaining money and influence.

So that movement from the provincial...

outskirts to the metropolitan centre is what that kind of novel is all about.

Yeah, a few of them.

So Bring Larks and Heroes a long time ago.

I mean, people may not know these early novels, but he wrote a novel about Joan of Arc called Blood Red Sister Rose, which is really, really good.

And he wrote this wonderful novel called Gossip in the Forest, which is really about the end of the First World War in Europe.

You know, those novels are not set in Australia and they're not about Australian things.

They're really good, though.

They're

They're beautifully written and really historically informed.

I don't know enough about Tom Keneally to know really whether people think of him as a historical novelist, but he certainly seemed to begin his career in that way.

Well, actually, two of Dickens' sons came to Australia.

Dickens is cast sometimes as a bad father because he sent a number of his sons overseas at quite a young age, I think,

or Edward, was 16 when he was sent to Australia.

And by that time, his older brother, Alfred, was already there.

And this is in the 1860s, so it's after the gold rush period, and it's when actually a lot of people were coming out to Australia, in any case, to try and make some money, to make their fortune.

And so the son of Anthony Trollope, one of the sons of Anthony Trollope, Fred Trollope,