Australia’s first novels emerge from colonial past

In the 1830s, colonists in Australia began publishing novels that reflected both British literary traditions and the unique experiences of life in the penal colonies.

Between 1830 and 1831, Henry Savery published Quintus Servinton in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), a fictionalized account mirroring his own experiences with forgery and transportation. Savery, an English businessman, had been sentenced to transportation for forgery and wrote the novel while in exile, intending it for an English audience.

Prior to Quintus Servinton, First Nations people in Australia had shared stories for millennia, but the novel form was new to the region, originating with the rise of the middle class and printing technologies in Britain. In 1838, Anna Maria Bunn, an Irish widow living in New South Wales, published The Guardian, becoming the first woman to publish a novel on the Australian mainland.

Scholars only confirmed Bunn as the author in the 1960s, discovering a note from her son identifying her authorship. Though neither novel achieved lasting literary fame, critics found Quintus Servinton overly moralizing and The Guardian melodramatic. They offer insight into early colonial life, themes of crime and social upheaval, and the connections between Australian and global literature.

Both novels explored topics like forgery, social class, and the challenges faced by migrants in a new land, shaping the foundations of Australian literary culture.