Visions of Australia: Impressions of the Landscape, 1642-1910, Lothian, South Melbourne, Vic., 2002. braille edition, 2005
This book remakes the conception of Australia. Writers such as Henry Lawson saw Australia through the eyes of settlers trying to build farms with insufficient land, money and knowledge. Yet the casual first observers of the country and its fledgling cities found them beautiful. This book records the opinions of 100 of those who saw the land in its unchanged state, and the cities as they developed. They transform the modern notions of a harsh landscape into a garden of wildflowers. They transform the wood-and-canvas huts fronting streets of mud and dust into buildings of extraordinary elegance. They transform the European people from drunken and licentious convicts and opportunists into members of an intelligent, vigorous, adaptable and proud society. They transform Aboriginal Australians into highly intelligent people with great artistic ability. Drawing on a range of original historical documents, Rolls presents a vista of early Australia. (blurb to braille edition)