Written in the mid-1850s before any official or more orthodox history of the South Australian colony had appeared, The Kangaroo Islanders is one of the few colonial novels that represents in fleeting glimpses some of the improvisational and interactive encounters between the colonisers and the colonised on the edges of the island continent. A remarkable and colourful book, this novel represents life on Kangaroo Island in the period between 1802-1836.