This book examines the flight of young Australian writers to London in the decades before and after Federation in 1901. Peter Morton studies how their careers were shaped by shifting their country of residence, the expatriate experience, and how the loss of these expatriates affected the evolving literary culture of Australia.

This book is a critical biography of Grant Allen, (1848-1899), the first for a century, based on all the surviving primary sources. The Better End of Grub Street uses Allen's career to examine the role and status of the freelance author/journalist in the late-Victorian period.