[1] It was part of a series of historical plays by Park set at sea in Australia's past, the others including I'll Meet You in Botany Bay, Stormy Was the Weather and Early in the Morning (Far from the Land was different from those in that it was fictional.)
They combine the presentation of factual incidents with a keen imaginative perception of character under stress, an ironical feeling for the tears and anguish and disillusionment of persons born to a place in history, an appreciation of pioneering courage balanced by a sense of the failure of life to fulfil its ultimate expectations.
These plays have the salt tang of the sea, the roll and pitch of wooden ships breasting through uncharted waters, as well as vivid personal emotions.
slavishly imitative of art overseas, or intensely preoccupied with a kind of rugged Australianism, treating our his torical and geographical aspects as something wonderful, mystic and sacred.
Otherwise she would never have imagined so consistently dull a story, which droned on for a mortal half hour at least, about the cowlike musings of an Irish girl who was sailing from Cork to Sydney... Our writers must understand that patriotism is not enough.