Review of Dream and Disillusion: A Search for Australian Cultural Identity' by David Walker, *Darron Field's Memoirs of Wordsworth edited by Geoffrey Little, and Henry Kendal by W.H. Wilde

Abstract

David Walker's book will be of more interest to historiographers than to literary critics. Subtitled 'A search for Australian cultural identity', it examines the formative period and relationships of four writers, Vance Palmer (1885-1959), Louis Esson (1879-1943), Frank Wilmot (1881-1942) and Frederick Sinclaire (1881-1954), who shared many ideals and aspirations. Except for Sinclaire, these writers have all been the subject of separate studies. Walker is the first, however, to have examined in some detail their interrelationships, the influence they exerted on each other, and the way they drew on a common pool of ideas.