The Quest for Love and Identity in Marcus Clarke's 'His Natural Life'

Abstract

Marcus Clarke's 'For The Term of His Natural Life' (1874) has been described as "the best novel produced in nineteenth-century Australia." Such a claim is reasonable because, at the time, Australian literature was but a fledgling and emerging phenomenon. However, the assertion could, arguably, be also extended to include twenty and twenty-first century Australian literature, since the novel's efficacy has not been diluted by time.