Review of The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux, Including his Vocabulary of the Flash Language, edited by Noel McLachlan
Abstract
We are beginning to reach a stage when the books which form the basis of our social history are emerging from obscurity and are becoming available to everyone. It is a process to watch with some nervousness. As long as they were safely tucked away in libraries and only an occasional student read them, it was possible to play them up. Hardy Vaux's Memoirs is such a book. Now, by means of this handsomely produced and elaborately annotated volume, the public can judge for itself. Is it a work of literature? Is it a social document? Was it worth the enormous amount of trouble it has cost Mr McLachlan to bring it to the light?
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Published 1 June 1965 in Volume 2 No. 1. Subjects: Colonial life, Convicts, Memoirs.
Cite as: Elliott, Brian. ‘Review of The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux, Including his Vocabulary of the Flash Language, edited by Noel McLachlan.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 1965, doi: 10.20314/als.b20b3beac5.