Australian Rare Books 1788-1900
Australian Rare Books 1788-1900

Author: Jonathan Wantrup

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-01

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 1040289371

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is a demonstration of the richness, worth and vitality of Australian documentary record. At the same time, it is an introduction to collecting Australiana for those who, if not already bitten by the book bug, have been dangerously exposed to it. Readers who are immune to the attractions of collecting but who value our past and its books will also find something to interest them in the following pages.

A House of Commons for a Den of Thieves
A House of Commons for a Den of Thieves

Author: Adam Wakeling

Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing

Published: 2021-01-29

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 1922454141

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In 1788, Great Britain founded a colony in Australia to swallow up its criminals. And swallow them it did – more than 160,000 men and women were transported to the Australian colonies over eight decades. Remarkably, these colonies swiftly developed into robust and innovative democracies. The 1856 Victorian election was the first in the world where voters took a government-printed ballot paper, took it into a private voting booth to fill it out, then put it in a ballot box. And Australians have kept this democratic model ever since. A House of Commons for a Den of Thieves is the story of how the citizens of these colonies threw off the stigma of their criminal origins and asserted their rights. Not only against imperial authorities in London but also those wealthy and powerful men in the colonies themselves who distrusted the idea of mass democracy. And through their success, they created a lasting democratic tradition that their descendants have expanded and built on up until the present day.

The Broad Arrow
The Broad Arrow

Author: Jenna Mead

Publisher: Sydney University Press

Published: 2019-02-01

Total Pages: 447

ISBN-13: 192089974X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Caroline Leakey, writing as Oliné Keese, published her first and only novel, The Broad Arrow, in 1859. It tells the story of Maida Gwynnham, a young middle-class woman lured into committing a forgery by her deceitful lover, Captain Norwell, and then wrongly convicted of infanticide. The novel’s title describes the arrow that was stamped onto government property, including the clothes worn by convict – a symbol of shame and incarceration. With its ‘fallen woman’ protagonist, its gothic undertones and its exploration of the social and moral implications of the penal system, this little-known novel gives an insight into a significant chapter of Australian history from a uniquely female perspective. In this new critical edition, editor Jenna Mead restores material that was cut when the novel was reissued in a radically abridged version in 1886, restoring for the first time in over a century the complete original text of Leakey’s important work.