Combinatorial Creativity and the Australian Letters of Amalie Dietrich

This is an investigation into a fictive life-story that continues to be widely accepted as historical truth. A minor section of that narrative consists of fabricated letters attributed to the female protagonist, Amalie Dietrich, but comprising rearranged selections from the autobiographical work of a male anthropologist. Comments in these fictional letters have been selectively and disproportionately distorted for widespread media dissemination of a false and persistently negative character-image. One key imaginary letter is deconstructed in detail in order to reveal the combinatorial creativity employed by its true author, to expose the provenance of the material, and to establish that the attribution of these letters to Dietrich is fallacious.