Is Australian romance an oxymoron? It has been long thought so; not for us Don Juan or Don Quixote but Ned Kelly and Tom Collins. Even when romance rears its alluring head in Australian fiction, as with Harry's wooing of Sybilla in 'My Brilliant Career', it is often quashed as a distraction or delusion. More recently, celebrated texts of their times such as 'Puberty Blues' (1979), 'Oscar and Lucinda' (1988), 'Praise' (1992) have confirmed the view that romance is difficult in Australia - and in Australian fiction.