Long Odds

by Marcus Clarke

From the book's This story was commenced early in the year 1868, for publication in the Colonial Monthly - a magazine of which I became at that time proprietor and editor. In now presenting it to the public in a complete form, I will take the opportunity of saying a few prefatory words. In reviewing "Long Odds" from time to time, in its brief notices of the Colonial Monthly, the press has frequently blamed the author for laying the scene in England instead of in Australia. It seems, at first sight, natural to expect that a story written by a person living in Australia, published in an Australian periodical, and offered to an Australian public, should contain description of nothing that was not purely Australian. The best Australian novel that has been, and probably will be written, is "Geoffrey Hamlyn", and any attempt to paint the ordinary squatting life of the colonies, could not fail to challenge unfavourable comparison with that admirable story. But I have often thought, and I daresay other Australian readers have thought also - How would Sam Buckley get on in England? My excuse, therefore, in offering to the Australian public a novel in which the plot, the sympathies, the interest, the moral, are all English, must be that I have endeavoured to depict, with such skill as is permitted me, the fortunes of a young Australians will still call "Home". Marcus Clarke Collins Street, Melbourne June 8th, 1869

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 23, 2013

About the author

Australian writer Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke, known as Marcus Clarke, was born in Kensington, London. His mother died when he was just a small child and he was raised by his father, a lawyer.
Marcus Clarke moved to Victoria, Australia, where he had an uncle in the provincial town of Ararat, and landed in Melbourne in June 1863. In 1869 Clarke married the actress Marian Dunn and shortly afterwards they started to raise a family of six children. He died of pleurisy at the age of thirty-five.