Lusting for London: Australian Expatriate Writers at the Hub of Empire, 1870–1950 by Peter Morton (review)

A back cover promotional quotation describes Lusting for London as “a keenly analytical and brilliantly written account of eight decades of the experiences of Australian expatriate authors in London.” I would not be quite so fulsome. It is a most readable book, though, packed with intriguing stories and snapshots of a wide variety of writers and their experiences, along with brief characterizations of some of their books. There are just a few longer accounts—more descriptive than analytical—of particular works by several of the best known writers, notably Henry Handel Richardson’s The Way Home (1925) and Martin Boyd’s Lucinda Brayford (1946). According to Morton, most of his expatriate subjects ranged from ordinary to mediocre writers. The most successful among them produced popular fiction and potboilers for the “bottom end of the market” (106). Guy Boothby churned out 6,000 words a day and once dictated 20,000 words at a sitting. Those writers informed by modernist ideas and methods were scarce among them, and there were plenty of failures. Yet from this material Morton has fashioned a vigorous narrative. Whom the expatriates were, why they went to England, and what happened to them drive the book.

The eminent contemporary Australian writer, David Malouf, is cited: “People who talk of expatriates are still living in the nineteenth century” (qtd. in Morton 213). Well, not really. “Expatriate” remained a valid term until the mid-1960s. Since then radical advances in communications and travel technology have effectively collapsed time and space. Global travel and conversation have become so easy that expatriates now belong to a gone world.

Who qualified as an expatriate and why? “Expatriate” was always an unstable classification. It can be difficult to determine to which country a person primarily belongs. Some writers are claimed by several: Charles Conder, the English artist, is listed as an expatriate Australian though he spent just six years there. How long did a writer have to stay in England to become an expatriate? When, if ever, does a “lingering tourist” become one (188)? Were writers expatriates who were permanent residents but whose loyalties remained elsewhere? What about immigrants from Australia who simply “melted” (as Morton puts it) into the local English populace (45)? Famous cartoonist David Low is included as Australian, though he was born in New Zealand and began his career there before working for eight years in Sydney and relocating to London for the next forty-two years.

Morton is sensibly cautious. Since terms like “expatriate,” “émigré,” “exile,” and “emigrant” are often used loosely and inappropriately, he provides a good discussion of how these denominations can be productively deployed. His expatriates were voluntary migrants. They were not forced to leave Australia because of ethnicity, religion, or political beliefs, unlike exiles.

Morton claims that most expatriates left Australia for personal rather than ideological reasons. Many were seeking better financial rewards in London, which was the biggest literary market place in the world—unlike Australia, where it was very difficult to make a living as a writer. Other motives for leaving included ambition, the need for competition and a more stimulating critical climate, and the isolation aspiring Australian writers often felt: a sense that something was missing, that there was no cultural life there. Hunger for experiences beyond what their own country provided was commonplace. “Cultural cringe” was widespread, a belief that England was simply better (234). For Morton, the sheer power of English cultural hegemony, the potency of the imagined England, cannot be exaggerated. Most expatriate writers came from bourgeois backgrounds. Their schooling was grounded in the study of English literature and history until the 1960s. And, until the 1960s, the term “home” was used to evoke the United Kingdom by Australasian generations born before World War II. Dr. Mahoney, the main protagonist of Richardson’s The Way Home, which recreates Victorian times, represented the experience shared...