The Mermaid Tree - How a tiny unknown ship opened Australia's north and west to development, dreams and disappointment

Tiley, Robert

ISBN 10: 0733317014 / ISBN 13: 9780733317019

Published by ABC, 2006

About this Item

ABC Books, Sydney, 2006. Softcover (16 x 24 cm), xx, 297 pages. ISBN: 0733317014. Very Good condition. Covers bumped, lightly creased at edges & corners. Page edges foxing/soiled. "Almost two hundred years ago a young British sailor carved his ship's name, 'Mermaid', on a Kimberley coast boab tree - it is still there today, probably Australia's oldest living graffiti. It also marked the beginning of an extraordinary period of optimism and adventure in Australia's history. The race to survey and settle Australia's west and northern coastlines was the equivalent of last century's 'space race', as France, Britain and Holland competed commercially for antipodean bases after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. "The Mermaid Tree" is the extraordinary story of the little-known successors to Cook, Bligh, La Perouse, and Flinders, why they did it, what they got out of it and the haphazard global politics they had to endure. King, Freycinet, d'Urville, Wickham, Stokes, Grey, Blackwood, Yule, Kennedy and Stanley are not well known, but all were key to unlocking so much of Australia's development. And it started with 'Mermaid'. Weight (before packaging): 480g.

Seller Inventory # 2581

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Mermaid Tree - How a tiny unknown ship opened Australia's north and west to development, dreams and disappointment
• Publisher: ABC
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0733317014
• ISBN 13: 9780733317019
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Australiana; History

About this title

Synopsis

For generations of Australians, the great navigators of the golden age of Antipodean maritime exploration - Cook, Bligh, la Perouse, Bougainville and Flinders - have long been household names. the significance of their discoveries and their contribution to the settlement and development of our island continent is widely appreciated and can hardly be overestimated. However, about their successors - the hydrographers and explorers of the period 1815-1850 - much less is generally known. In this meticulously researched history, Robert tiley seeks to fill some of the gaps in the national consciousness by writing of the trials, accomplishments and sheer intrepidity of Frenchmen such as Freycinet, d'Urville and Duperrey; of Britons such as Phillip Parker King, Stokes, Blackwood, Owen Stanley and Wickham, and their valuable work in mapping the eastern, northern and western coastlines of the enormous Australian land mass.