In this book, colonialism, race, and gender are explored through the cultural representations of an episode of Australian history.

List of illustrations; Preface; 1. Her story/history: the many fates of Eliza Fraser; 2. Eliza Fraser's story: texts and contexts; 3. John Curtis and the politics of empire: The Shipwreck of the Stirling Castle; 4. Policing the borders of civilisation: colonial man and his others; 5. Cannibals: Western imaginings of the Aboriginal other; 6. Modern reconstructions: Michael Alexander's history and Sidney Nolan's paintings; 7. Patrick White's novel A Fringe of Leaves; 8. A universal postcolonial myth?: representations beyond Australia - Gabriel Josipovici, Michael Ondaatje and Andre Brink; 9. And now for the movie: popular accounts; 10. Oppositional voices: contemporary politics and the Eliza Fraser story.