Editorial.

I would like to thank all those readers who kindly sent comments to me about the contents of Margin. I do appreciate receiving such comments especially as most of them were expressing their enjoyment of the various articles. One or two were mildly critical of other articles but that is useful to the editor to have such comments because I can then gauge readers interests in certain material. Again my heartfelt thanks.

This April issue contains a variety of articles, about different subjects. Of great interest is the article on John Oxley's Sydney town house in 1829. It was a surprisingly well furnished house in the colony of New South Wales only forty years old. The sized and luxury of the house in what is often regarded as a struggling convict gaol might change some opinions about life in the early days. It was written by the late Richard Johnson who had written it before he died. He had completed his definitive biography of John Oxley which was published by Oxford University Press before he died suddenly. He was also working on the Catalogue of the Library of John Oxley at the time and his wife Val and myself are trying to finish this work. It will be published by the Mulini Press later this year.

There area number of other interesting articles. First one connected to our first theatre and the playbills printed by our first printer George Hughes--not George Howe who is often incorrectly given that honour. The article on the cannibal convict in Van Diemen's Land takes us into our convict heritage period written by the Canberra writer Craig Cormick. There is another 'episode' in the life of Thomas McCombie a very early Melbourne writer by Caroline Innett.

There is a notice about two conferences on Louisa Atkinson the first Australian born woman writer. Most of her novels and other writings like A Voice from the Country have been published by the Mulini Press. Her last novel Tressa's Resolve published as a serial in the Sydney Mail shortly after her death will be published by the Mulini Press later this year. We plan to have some of the papers given at the recent conferences published in future issues of Margin.

New books on nineteenth century subjects continue to be published and we will keep you informed of such books of interest.