Munro, Colin

Munro, Colin is an author about whom little public information is currently available; details of nationality, birth and death dates, and educational background remain unrecorded, and three of his works are held in the collection. His known representative work is Fern Vale or, the Queensland Squatter, in Volumes 1, 2, and 3. Set against pastoral and squatting life in Queensland, it belongs to the colonial Australian narrative tradition. The surviving bibliographic evidence suggests that the author develops a single subject across several volumes, giving extended attention to settlers' daily circumstances and local scenery, with a documentary flavor characteristic of nineteenth-century colonial literature. Because relevant materials are scarce, a full assessment of his writing and later influence is difficult, and this introduction is based mainly on the bibliographic clues provided by the works themselves.