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Tanya Bretherton, The Suicide Bride; A Mystery of Tragedy and Family Secrets in Edwardian Sydney
Tanya Bretherton, The Suicide Bride; A Mystery of Tragedy and Family Secrets in Edwardian Sydney Hachette Australia, 2019, pp 1-311, ISBN: 9780733640988, RRP $32.99 Mid-morning, Tuesday 12 January 1904, Watkin Street, Newtown. Four-year-old Mervyn Sly probably did not fully comprehend the horror he…
Jessica North, Esther; The extraordinary true story of the First Fleet girl who became First Lady of the colony
Jessica North, Esther; The extraordinary true story of the First Fleet girl who became First Lady of the colony Allen & Unwin, 2019, pp 1-277, ISBN 9781760527372, p/bk, AUS$29.99 They could have hanged Esther Abrahams. In 1786, the pretty young Jewish woman had attempted…
Leigh Straw, Angel of Death Dulcie Markham, Australia’s most beautiful bad woman
Leigh Straw, Angel of Death Dulcie Markham, Australia’s most beautiful bad woman HarperCollins, 2019, ISBN 978073333966 (p/bk), pp1-312, RRP $32.99 Angel of Death is the third book by writer and historian Leigh Straw that focus on Australian women and crime. It follows…
Elizabeth Malcolm and Dianne Hall, A New History of the Irish in Australia
Elizabeth Malcolm and Dianne Hall, A New History of the Irish in Australia New South Books, 2018, 448pp, ISBN: 9781742235530 (p/b), RRP: $34.99 In 1986 Patrick O’Farrell published The Irish in Australia. At the time, the book was both feted and criticised…
Murder most foul: the Sussex Street Mystery
New South Wales Government Gazette, September 21, 1866. p 2194 via Trove This week on 2SER Breakfast, the Dictionary's special guest Dr Catie Gilchrist talked to Tess about one of the stories she's come across during her work as a Fellow…
Sarah Luke, Callan Park Hospital for the Insane
Sarah Luke, Callan Park Hospital for the Insane Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018, 253 pp., ISBN: 9781925588965, p/bk, AUS $39.95 The nineteenth century lunatic asylum, in both the literary and the historical imagination, is often a lurid and depressingly dark place. The story goes that mad…
Tanya Bretherton, The Suitcase Baby
Tanya Bretherton, The Suitcase Baby, Hachette Australia, 2018, ISBN 9780733639227, pp 1-327 In November 1923, a small suitcase was found washed up and abandoned on the beautiful, picturesque, bushland shores of Athol Beach on the edge of Mosman. Inside was the…
Catherine Jinks, Charlatan The Dishonest Life and Dishonoured Loves of Thomas Guthrie Carr, Stage Mesmerist
Catherine Jinks, Charlatan The Dishonest Life and Dishonoured Loves of Thomas Guthrie Carr, Stage Mesmerist Vintage Books, Penguin Random House Australia, North Sydney, 2017, pp 1-256 (plus notes), ISBN: 978 0 14378 554 5 Between 1865 and 1886 Thomas Guthrie Carr was…
Pip Smith, Half Wild
Pip Smith, Half Wild Allen & Unwin, 2017, ISBN: 9781760294649, pp1-390 During the winter of 1920, Sydney was gripped by the spectacularly scandalous story of Eugenia Falleni. Falleni had for many years pretended to be a man called Harry Crawford. Harry was…
David Stephens and Alison Broinowski (eds) The Honest History Book
David Stephens and Alison Broinowski (eds) The Honest History Book, NewSouth Publishing, 2017, pp1-344, ISBN 9781742235264 (paperback) ‘Australia is more than Anzac – and always has been.’[1] The Honest History Book, recently published by NewSouth, is a compelling, at times confronting and yet convincing…