Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow

It is a deeply political book and a brave one, considering that it was written at the height of World War Two. At the heart of it is the story of how the aftermath of the First World War—the Depression and the rise of Fascism in Europe—impinged on the lives of a group of working-class families in Sydney, in particular on Harry Munster and his family and circle. But Barnard Eldershaw do not stop the story at the outbreak of World War Two. Writing before the war was half over, they postulate a series of events leading to the invasion of Australia by a right-wing international police force, a revolutionary uprising by left wingers and the destruction and abandonment of Sydney.

It is hardly surprising that the book, when it came to the attention of war-time censors, caused them concern. Although they confined their cuts to the fictional ending and the build up to the rising, the whole book is in fact provocative in the extreme. It reveals Barnard Eldershaw's deep hostility to capitalism, materialism and competition, and to the way that Australia, as they saw it, had been exploited and manipulated by Britain and the United States. (p.xii)