Rosamund Dalziell. Shameful Autobio...

Rosamund Dalziell. Shameful Autobiographies: Shame in Contemporary Australian Autobiographies and civilization Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1999. 302 pp ISBN 0-522-8460-5 $2995

When Chris Wallace-Crabbe wrote his chapter upon Autobiography in The Penguin of the present day Literary History of Australia (1988) autobiographical writing was beginning to play a critical part in debates about the nation--or, more precisely, the "national character." The Penguin recent History was produced as part of the Bicentennial celebrations in 1988 the culmination of a phase when Australians were