Australian Legendary Tales

The book was immediately popular, being revised or reissued several times since its first publication in 1896, and noted as the first substantial representation of cultural works by Aboriginal Australians.

Parker's prefatory remarks give acknowledgement to the "Noongahburrah" people and names some individuals who assisted her, the dedication is to man she describes as their king, Peter Hippi.

[5] The book was prepared and marketed as part of a series overseen by Lang, similar to many other publications presented as scholarly works of folklore or fairy tales made English.

A review in the Sydney Morning Herald agreed with Parker's belief that this was the first work in Australian literature to compile the legends of a particular group and exploit this as a folk-lore study.

Later commentators noted Parker's familiarity and sympathy with the people, her thoroughness in collating word lists and translations make these Tales important in understanding the original tellers.

"Parker invokes a folklore authority with two references to Max Müller in her preface, with whom Lang had a long running scientific feud, continued even in his obituary of that man.

[13] Drake-Brockman's preface refers to A. P. Elkin as an authority when supporting a claim that Parker "was in fact one of the first people to write exclusively of the Australian aborigines as fellow creatures" and,[14] "Perhaps she was, indeed, the first to set forth, to any noteworthy extent, their own vision of themselves and their conditions of living, so far as she was able to reproduce their thoughts and speech forms in written English.