Tasmania

The Invention of Terra Nullius – Historical and Legal Fictions on the Foundation of Australia. – Michael Connor

Hobart author Michael Connor has a varied career including teaching in North Africa and management at the famous Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Then he decided to broaden his education in Colonial History at James Cook University and then a PhD in Colonial History at the University of Tasmania.

Published by Macleay Press Sydney in 2005. Octavo, 361 pages, a super fine copy. Very hard to find must have had a very small print run.

This book explores the concept of Terra Nullius “Land belonging to no-one” a principal applied not only in Australia but in many parts of the World subject to colonisation. This is not intended, we believe, to be a provoking works … its sets out the facts and issues comprehensively and there are clues to its direction from the first paragraph.

A special book about an important and now in our faces subject. Worth reading with an open and inquisitive mind.

The defining principal [or was it] now struggling to get support albeit rather late

$60.00

Updating cart…

Varieties of Vice-Regal Life – Edited by Richard Davis and Stefan Petrow.

Published by the Tasmanian Historical Research Association in 2004. Signed nicely by the editors. Largeish softcover of substance, 298 pages, nicely produced.

Thomas Denison arrived in Hobart in 1847 to become Governor .. this is a comprehensive compilation of the correspondence he entered into and also that of his wife Lady Caroline Denison. The editors have added many helpful notes and interpretations which make the whole highly informative regrading that period of Tasmanian History.

Personal, full and interesting accounts of the day through correspondence … an art form now lost.

Tasmanian History wrapped up in letters ..

$30.00

Updating cart…

Inscriptions in Stone – St David’s Burial Ground (Hobart) 1804-1872 – Compiled by Richard Lord

First edition 1976. Number 215 of 1000 copies.

Published by St David’s Battery Point in 1976. Small octavo, 210 pages, frontispiece of Robert Knopwood astride his horse with dog. Very good copy.

A unique record of early Hobart town from the headstones of the first cemetery. Many that have visited Hobart have spent time reading the gravestones at St David’s. It is impossible not to come away with a sense of perspective on both old and modern life.

Sadness and triumph reflected in stone and here recorded in greater depth with through research (four years in the making).

There is nothing morbid about this book it is in fact a celebration of the first European’s to grace Tasmanian shores.

Graveyard delight (well it’s a special one) from Hobart.

$60.00

Updating cart…

G.T.W.B. Boyes – Diaries and Letters (Vol 1 1820-1832) – edited by Peter Chapman

A very solid and sought after book. Published by the Melbourne University Press in 1985. Stand alone volume we cannot find anywhere Chapman producing a Vol 2.

A substantial work. Thick octavo, 687 pages, endpaper maps, illustrations from period artwork. Another super fine copy.

George Boyes was a veteran of the Peninsula War – he became auditor of Van Diemens Land in 1826 – the depth of his letters is remarkable and we see those early years through his words with immense clarity – his talents as an artist were superb with much of his work reproduced here

Boyes left a superb legacy

$90.00

Updating cart…

First Visitors to Bass Strait – J. S. Cumpston

A Roebuck (After Dampier) Society publication of 1973.

Small quarto, 103 pages, end paper maps, illustrated nicely. A very good copy.

Cumpston’s well researched account of the opening up of the Bass Strait.

Two parts – The Furneaux Group which starts quite naturally with Captain Furneaux in the Adventure on his own away from Cook for a while. Part two about King Island with Robert Campbell and John Palmer before Flinders and his thorough approach. And then the French and the fright they put into Governor King and the various hoisting of flags that followed.

Bass Strait from all directions

$50.00

Updating cart…

Port Arthur – The Journal of Charles O’Hara Booth – Commandant of the Port Arthur Penal Settlement.

A hard to find Tasmanian production. Published by the Tasmanian Historical Research Association in 1981.

Slightly larger octavo, 298 pages, illustrated and a super fine copy

Booth kept his almost daily diary for 23 years so there is so much about Port Arthur to make it the fundamental record of the goings on in the penal establishment.

Real diary makes for interesting reading

$60.00

Updating cart…

The Invention of Terra Nullius – Historical and Legal Fictions on the Foundation of Australia. – Michael Connor

Varieties of Vice-Regal Life – Edited by Richard Davis and Stefan Petrow.

Inscriptions in Stone – St David’s Burial Ground (Hobart) 1804-1872 – Compiled by Richard Lord

G.T.W.B. Boyes – Diaries and Letters (Vol 1 1820-1832) – edited by Peter Chapman

First Visitors to Bass Strait – J. S. Cumpston

Port Arthur – The Journal of Charles O’Hara Booth – Commandant of the Port Arthur Penal Settlement.

Product Categories