The Workingman's Paradise: An Australian Labour Novel

1892 [Lane, William] (1861-1917). The Workingman’s Paradise: An Australian Labour Novel. By John Miller [pseud.]. Sydney, NSW: Edwards, Dunlop & Co. Rpt. Sydney, NSW: Sydney University Press, 1980, with an “Introduction” by Michael Wilding ([9]-[79]). Another edition with title on the cover as The Workingman’s Paradise: An Historical Novel. Sydney, NSW: Cosme Publicity Co., 1948. A, M, PSt

Consistently treated as an early Australian utopia, probably because of its title which is clearly ironic, but the novel does not fit any definition of utopia. Could be seen as describing Australia as a dystopia. The last page of the text (reproduced in the 1980 ed. on [78]) has an ad for a sequel that was never published, In New Australia: Being Nellie Lawton’s Diary of a Happier Life. By John Miller [pseud.] that will present the eutopia to be found in the New Australia Co-operative Settlement Association. The author was born in England, moved to Canada age sixteen, returned to England briefly in 1885, and moved to Australia the same year, where he became a labour activist and editor of The Boomerang and then The Worker. He led the New Australia expedition to Paraguay in 1893 and returned to Australia in 1899. In his Brisbane: Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares (Brookside, Qld, Australia: Brisbane History Group and Tingalpa, Qld, Australia: Boolarong Press, 2022), suggests that the author was most likely Lane’s wife Ann. He elaborated on the argument in a substantial email to me on October 5, 2022, which is described in my review of the book in Utopian Studies.