Neglected, ignored, lost, disparaged, disregarded, limited, devalued: a literary reputation is a fragile thing in a country whose literature is in crisis and where, as Ivor Indyk argued, ‘most of our literary tradition is out of print, undertaught and largely unknown to the Australian public’. This is nowhere more so than in the case of the reputation and works of Vance and Nettie Palmer. The misrepresentations, mis-readings and myths surrounding Nettie and Vance Palmer continue.