The figure of the lost child has haunted the Australian imagination. Peter Pierce's original and sometimes shocking study The Country of Lost Children traces this ambivalent and disturbing history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from poetry, fiction and newspaper reports to paintings and films, The Country of Lost Children analyzes the cultural and moral implications of the lost child in Australian history and illuminates a crucial aspect of our present condition. At its core are confronting, often troubling, questions about childhood itself.

The Cambridge History of Australian Literature is the most comprehensive volume ever written on Australia s national literature. This authoritative guide spans Australian literary history from colonial origins, encompassing indigenous and migrant literatures, as well as representations of Asia and the Pacific and the role of literary culture in modern Australian society. Bringing together a distinguished line-up of contributors, this volume explores each of the literary modes in an Australian context, including short story, poetry, children s literature, autobiography and fiction. This book...