In 1893 nearly 500 Australians set sail for Paraguay, intent on establishing a socialist utopia – New Australia – in the
heart of the South American jungle. A Peculiar People examines the motivations and experiences of this group, their increasing dissension, and eventual dissolution of the community.
Partly inspired by the short-lived utopian colony of Icaria, founded in Texas by French communists in 1848, the New Australia experiment was led by the charismatic but erratic journalist, writer and
socialist intellectual William Lane. As with Icaria, the project foundered early, expulsions and decampments undermining the spirit of universal fraternity it was intended to embody. Despite his key role, Lane was one of the earliest to desert New Australia, establishing the splinter Cosme settlement nearby.
Written by Gavin Souter, an accomplished Australian historical writer, A Peculiar People covers with sensitivity and clarity a remarkable but flawed project, forming a curious episode in the history of two countries otherwise sharing little. Souter argues that the New Australia and Cosme colonists sit comfortably on the pedestal of Australian legend alongside the Eureka Stockaders, the Kelly Gang and the ANZACS of Gallipoli – a pedestal carved in defeat by those who have failed heroically in the face of overwhelming odds.
Appendices to the book comprise a list of the names, ages and occupations of each of the colonists as far as records allow, and a slim anthology of songs and verse composed by colonists of both New Australia and the offshoot Cosme settlement. The 1991 edition is the third edition of the book, following the original
publication in 1968, and a facsimile edition in 1981, and contains an updated Preface. The first publication secured the author 1968 Foundation for Australian Literary Studies award.