This book presents a cultural history of representation in the Australian settler state, tracing how certain bodies were cast as curious, deviant, or monstrous between 1788 and the early twentieth century. Drawing on case studies from courtrooms, exhibition culture, newspapers, photography, and popular literature, the book examines the making of bodily 'types' at the intersection of race, gender, class, and stigmatised embodiment. It brings into dialogue representations of Aboriginal cultural brokers and white settler subjects marked as anomalous, revealing both the coercive force and inherent instability of colonial tropes. Original and interdisciplinary, this book makes a significant contribution to Australian history, settler colonial studies, disability history, and the cultural history of embodiment.

Patricia Kennedy is an Australian writer who gained her PhD in Australian History at the University of New South Wales in 2024.