"Kangaroo" is a fictional account of a visit to New South Wales by the English writer Richard Lovat Somers and his wife Harriet in the early 1920s. The novel is actually semi-autobiographical, based on a three-month visit to Australia by Lawrence and his wife, in 1922. The novel includes a chapter describing Somers' experiences in wartime St Ives, Cornwall, vivid descriptions of the Australian landscape, and Richard Somers' sceptical reflections on fringe politics in Sydney. Kangaroo's movement, and the "great general emotion" of Kangaroo himself, do not appeal to Somers, and in this the novel begins to reflect Lawrence's own experiences during World War I.