Terror Australis

Bunyips, boundary riders and bush-lurkers: just some of the horrors that populate these tales of the Antipodean uncanny.

The Australian weird tradition may be a short one, but it’s as varied and rich as anything you’ll find in the Old World. Many of these tales – from the likes of Marcus Clarke, Sophie Osmond, Ernest Favenc and Mary Fortune – are written by strangers in a new land. Traditional European elements of the weird tale appear in new forms or are moulded afresh to a harsh new environment – the haunted house is no longer a rambling manor, but an abandoned shanty or rundown homestead; the ancient wood, the lair of evils and creatures from folklore, becomes the oppressively hot, fly-infested bush; and the windswept moor is the empty, endless Australian outback with its blood-read sands and emaciated myall trees. The anthology also includes Aboriginal voices, providing a very different take on the landscape and its horrors.