Visions And Realities - Images Of Early Postwar Australia

Australia in the late 1940s was presented to Britons as a potential home for migrants through official pamphlets available from the Australian High Commission. The picture of Australia in the immigration pamphlets was very different from that in a novel set in inner Sydney and published in 1947 in serial form in a major Australian newspaper. Both the pamphlets and the serialised novel gave rise to spirited public reaction. The nature of the fictional and non-fictional images, and of the reaction, is examined. All those involved had particular visions of Australia, but the nature of these visions differed.