My Home in Tasmania
During a Residence of Nine Years

A valuable work for colonial and women's writing, covering both life in the society and observations of nature.

Louisa Anne Meredith (Author)

9781108020336, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 October 2010

300 pages, 9 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.7 cm, 0.38 kg

Louisa Anne Meredith's account of her life in Tasmania was published in 1852. She was an experienced traveller, and this work is remarkable for being the first detailed account by a woman of life in the colony. Its shrewd observations and descriptive personal narrative make it an engaging read, as well as providing a valuable historical record. A keen botanist and artist, Meredith describes the island's natural life in great detail in beautiful and evocative passages. This first volume covers the journey to the island and her initial impressions of it. Her discussions of 'polite society', politics, prisoner and ex-prisoner populations, the 'white slave' issue, and her attitudes to the island's native people, also provide fascinating examples of colonial attitudes in the period and of how different cultures and backgrounds existed together on the island. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=merelo

Preface
1. Departure from Sydney
2. Night alarm
3. The hunt
4. Journey to Swan Port
5. Journey continued
6. Cambria
7. Bush fires
8. Excursion to the Schoutens
9. Swan Port conchology
10. Our new home of 'Riversdale'
11. Home occupations
12. The aborigines of Van Diemen's Land
13. Joyful removal to Spring Vale
14. Garden-making
15. The 'Devil'.

Subject Areas: Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM]