Ivanhoe in Australia: the First Fifty Years

Abstract

Walter Scott`s novel Ivanhoe was one of his most popular and influential works. It arrived in Australia, then the colony of New South Wales, very soon after its publication in late 1819 and was enthusiastically taken up by people in the colony. As well as the book itself, Ivanhoe manifested itself in a number of different ways in the coming years. There were regular references to the novel and its characters in newspaper articles; names derived from it were regularly given to houses and farms, towns and streets, horses and other possessions; and plays based on it were regularly performed. This article takes the bicentenary of the novel`s publication as an opportunity to consider the ways in which Ivanhoe was received and appropriated in the developing European culture of Australia in the first fifty years after its publication. The study is based on references to the novel and to items derived from it in Australian newspapers from 1820 to 1870.