Second Thoughts on the Langton Novels : Martin Boyd’s Revisions

Abstract

When Martin Boyd was urged by his Australian publishers, in 1968, to continue the Langton novels, he explained that he could not do so, because 'the Langtons have gone out of my system, and after living eleven years in Italy I am no longer clear as to how I intended to come full circle to the first chapter of "The Cardboard Crown". Another point is that I was not in Australia from 1921, about the end of "Blackbirds", until 1948, and my treatment of the "double world" had to be from the European side. I have done this with the second half of "Lucinda Brayford" so that this book with the Langton novels contain all I have to say on that theme, and give a complete picture of the Australia I have known from about 1850 to 1900 by hearsay, and then on from personal experience.