(Melbourne) for 1886, the
contributed matter is limited to a couple of chapters written by Mr.
G. A. Walstab, and skilfully inserted in the middle of the novel.
Walstab was one of Clarke's best friends, and he is no doubt the
'G. A. W.' to whom the story is dedicated 'in grateful remembrance of
the months of July and August, 1868.'

From the absence of a prefatory explanation when _Long Odds_ was
published in book form in 1869, it may be assumed that Clarke was
satisfied with the quality of the contributed work. At least, he was
willing to take the full responsibility of its authorship. But even with
this in view, it were well, perhaps, not to hold him too strictly
accountable for the faults of the story. Not much must be expected from
a first novel produced in the circumstances mentioned, and issued when
the author was only twenty-three. In his haste to give it final shape
immediately after the serial publication, he was probably ill advised.
One can only regret that it was not set aside for a year or so, and
written afresh, or, at least, largely revised. Perhaps this would have
been expecting too much from so unmethodical a worker as Clarke. The far
finer dramatic taste and literary form of his masterpiece, issued five
years later, showed how little indicative of his talent was the earlier
work.

In view of the large extent to which the life of the Australian landed
classes has been described in fiction during the last twenty years, it
is curious to read the plea Clarke offered to his Antipodean critics for
passing over the literary material close at hand and preferring the
well-worn paths of the English novelist.

During the serial publication of _Long Odds_ the colonial press raised
some objection to the laying of the scene in England instead of in
Australia. The author replied simply that Henry Kingsley's _Geoffry
Hamlyn_ being the best Australian novel that had been, or probably
would be, written, 'any attempt to paint the ordinary squatting life of
the colonies could not fail to challenge unfavourable comparison with
that admirable story.'

The excuse is just a little too adventitious to have convinced even
those to whom it was originally addressed. None the less, it may at the
moment have accurately represented the opinion of a beginner who at that
time could scarcely have known the extent of his own powers.

Probably he had given the subject little thought. His colonial
experience was certainly less vari