Between 1788 and 1880 some 1.3 million free emigrants arrived in Australia from the British Isles. It was a huge transition, both geographically and culturally, and one way of dealing with this appears to have been to write a diary. The surviving diaries offer snapshots of the lives of and experiences of many ordinary people who emigrated.

Draws on scholarship from leading figures in the field and spans Australian literary history from colonial origins, indigenous and migrant literatures, as well as representations of Asia and the Pacific and the role of literary culture in modern Australian society.