The Philosopher's Daughters is a lyrical tale of two very different sisters, whose 1890s voyage from London to Australia becomes a journey of self-discovery. When Harriet Cameron follows her beloved sister Sarah to the harsh Australian outback - as dangerous as it is beautiful, as mysterious as it is wild - she is alienated by the casual violence and great injustices of outback life. Harriet’s recovery begins with her growing friendship with an Aboriginal stock-man and her increasing love for the landscape. But this fragile happiness is soon threatened by murders at a nearby cattle station and by a menacing station hand who is seeking revenge

An Australian novelist with a keen interest in history, Alison Booth is an ANU-based Emeritus Professor of Economics. She is a regular contributor to academic journals and has previously published four novels, Stillwater Creek, The Indigo Sky, A Distant Land, and A Perfect Marriage. In 2017 she received the ESA Distinguished Fellow Award, and she is also an elected Fellow of the Econometric Society and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

Professor Frank Bongiorno is Head of the ANU School of History. He is the author of the award-winning book The Sex Lives of Australians: A History and The Eighties: The Decade That Transformed Australia. He has reviewed for the Times Literary Supplement, Australian Book Review, the Monthly, Fairfax and The Australian. He is a regular contributor to Inside Story and The Conversation.

Dr Andrew Leigh MP is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury, Shadow Assistant Minister for Charities and Federal Member for Fenner in the ACT. He is a former economics professor at the ANU, and author of Battlers and Billionaires, The Luck of Politics, Randomistas with the latest (out September 2020), Reconnected: A Community Builder's Handbook.

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