Reproduced here is the Colin Roderick April 1951 Walkabout article on Ion Idriess (the date was actually 1st April - but I don't think this was meant to be a joke!). See also my post, Colin Roderick and Ion Idriess.

Of interest also is that Roderick lists at the end "the scores of books that make up his [Idriess'] tally." One would think that as an editor, etc, at Angus and Robertson, Roderick would have a definitive list, yet there are a few anomalies in the list with dates and the titles included (or not included). Thus he has Madman's Island, 1926, as the first book - when we know it was first published 1927. But it was published by Cornstalk, an Imprint division of A and R and Roderick may not have had access to records or a copy of this very limited edition.

Roderick has Must Australia Fight? rather than the alternative title How Must Australia Fight? and perhaps this is how A and R recorded it - and perhaps Must Australia Fight? is the more common state of the first edition.

Some other dates are also incorrect: he lists Over the Range as 1938 (it was 1937) and The Great Boomerang as 1942 (but it was first published 1941 - and still today it is a great source of annoyance to see 1942 and later copies of The Great Boomerang regularly listed as first editions! Please, just check the Bibliography on this site!).

The notable missing books from Roderick's list is any mention of any of the Guerilla Series (published 1942, except for The Scout, 1943). It makes you wonder - if an executive of A and R couldn't get it quite right on the day - what hope have we? But decades of research by Idriess collectors and others has ironed out many A and R anomalies!