Product Description

The explorers of Australia tell their stories of courage and suffering, of dispossession and conquest, of a moving frontier between European invaders and the Aborigines who had been living on the continent for thousands of years. The stories in Tim Flannery's compelling anthology document almost four centuries of exploration. Many beggar belief: Charles Sturt weathering grotesque desert heat, the Maori chief Te Pahi saving the lives of condemned thieves in Sydney in 1805, the ruthless massacre of aborigines by the Jardine brothers in North Queensland. Brilliantly edited and introduced by Tim Flannery this is the most remarkable body of non-fiction writing ever produced in Australia.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #954142 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
This is a fascinating collection which draws on original written sources from explorers who travelled to Australia and explored it - on foot, by camel, or latterly, in a four-wheel drive - between the years 1606 and 1977. Flannery, who comes from Melbourne and is now a research scientist at the Australian Museum in Sydney, has scoured the records to come up with more than 60 edited accounts, including diary entries from great explorers after whom parts of Australia are named, such as James Cook, Matthew Flinders, Abel Tasman and Thomas Livingstone Mitchell. John Price, writing in 1798, records the first sightings of the 'cullawine' (later koala) and tells of John Wilson, the wild convict who deserted to join the Aborigines. The tales of how two utterly different cultures collided provides one of the focal points of this book. Price sums up the frequent ambivalence of such encounters when writing about the little girl whom his party kidnapped. 'She cried and fretted so much that the next morning we gave her a tomahawk and sent her to the rest of the natives,' he records. Despite Aborigine guides proving themselves more competent at survival than their European captors, they left few traces of themselves in print. Those here show their mettle: Jackey Jackey, a native of the Hunter Valley who accompanied John Kennedy to death on his 1848 expedition to Cape York, writes movingly both of his attachment to Kennedy and his ways of coping in an extreme circumstance. Flannery provides a lucid introduction, as well as a thumbnail sketch of each explorer, but does not intrude further. By arranging his accounts chronologically, and including women writers such as Olive Pink and Emily Caroline Creaghe, he winnows out a comprehensive scoop of jewels - those which reside in the minutest details. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Tim Flannery was born in Melbourne in 1956. He lives in Sydney, where he is Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum. In 1998 he was appointed Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University.

Customer Reviews

Wonderful compilation of spirited explorations
What possesses a person to set off into the trackless wastes of Australia, with the almost certain knowledge that death lies waiting to welcome them into his scrawny arms? Reading this book gives you some of the answers and some of the idea of the pain and suffering undergone by these explorers (and in some cases the hapless Aborigines coerced into seeking water). There are some amazingly good writers within these pages, quite unexpected when you consider that many of them were ex-convicts or self-taught (and comparing them to some contemporary American explorers); there are some delightful descriptive passages and the occasional bout of whimsy, especially the anecdote of how 'Rocket' got his name - I was in hoots! An excellent read, which encouraged me to order several old copies of explorers' accounts. Thoroughly recommended!

Fascinating anthology of Australian exploration
This an outstanding collection of short stories collected from a wide variety of Australian explorers. I read the whole book from cover to cover in one go - but it could just as easily be dipped into on an occassional 'chapter by chapter' basis. Stories include the camel who shot his owner, the first kangaroo sighting, the 'Dig Tree' and many more. It inspired me to go on and read some of the different original author's works in full.