HASLUCK LIBRARY

Extract from 'Foreword' by Paul Hasluck:
"Some of the verses in this collection have been published before and some are being published for the first time.

In 1939 a collection of my early verse appeared under the title Into the Desert in a limited edition privately published by Freshwater Bay Press. ... The verse was written at various times but mostly before or during the war of 1939-45. A second collection was prepared by me about 1947 but I never sought publication. Looking back at my writing, I think that I was writing chiefly for my own satisfaction as a craftsman, and as a human being twisted by feeling and obsessed by thought and having no person with whom to commune. ...

To some readers this collection of verse may seem old-fashioned. Time has brought many changes in the mode of Australian verse. This has always been so, largely because of the marked element of imitation in Australian literature. ...If there is anything of value in this volume it will be found, not by any test of being in or out of fashion in its form and style, but by the test of whether it moves or illumines the mind of the reader."