The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
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The Explorer's stump
Explorers Tree, Katoomba c1890, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 1031, 25) On the southern side of the Great Western Highway just west of Katoomba is a colonial relic known as the Explorers' Tree. But you would be forgiven…
It's a sign
Traffic congestion in Pyrmont, August 1938. Note the 'silent cop' on the road in front of the policeman directing traffic. Courtesy ACP Magazines, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 035/Item 098) Last week Lisa Murray mentioned a few of…
Cathy Perkins, The Shelf Life of Zora Cross
Cathy Perkins, The Shelf Life of Zora Cross Monash University Publishing, November 2019, 285pp (inc Index), ISBN (pb): 978-1-925835-53-3, RRP: $29.95 ‘£20 and you shall have her’ (p.60). This financial exchange in 1917 between Sydney bookseller James Tyrell and publisher George Robertson…
A decade of the Dictionary: the quintessential and the curious
Girl with birthday cake c1953, by Max Dupain, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 559/Box 9/705) This week the Dictionary of Sydney is celebrating 10 years since it went live! I am continually amazed by the content and connections…
The shelf life of Zora Cross
Zora Cross 1919, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (PXA 690/3) Today on 2SER Breakfast, Tess talked to historian and author Cathy Perkins about the Australian poet and journalist Zora Cross. Now largely forgotten, in the early 20th century she…
Siobhán McHugh, The Snowy: A History
Siobhán McHugh, The Snowy: A History (Anniversary edition) Paperback, May 2019, NewSouth, ISBN: 9781742236223, 368pp., AUD$34.99 This month marks the 70th anniversary of the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme, the largest engineering project in Australia. This anniversary edition is updated from the 1989…
David Hill, Convict Colony
David Hill, Convict Colony Allen & Unwin, 2019, 356 pp., ISBN: 9781760528669, p/bk, AUS$32.99 David Hill's new book Convict Colony is positioned as a story of a settlement that survived against all the odds, covering the first thirty years of the colonisation of…
William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company Bloomsbury, 2019, 522 pp., ISBN: 9781408864388, p/bk, AUS$26.99 Highly-regarded historian William Dalrymple's The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company is a fabulous achievement. There are two epigraphs upfront.…
Trim, the Cartographer’s Cat: The Ship’s Cat Who Helped Matthew Flinders Map Australia
Trim, the Cartographer’s Cat: The Ship’s Cat Who Helped Matthew Flinders Map Australia by Matthew Flinders, Philippa Sandall and Gillian Dooley, with illustrations by Ad Long and a foreword by Julian Stockwin Adlard Coles (Bloomsbury), 2019, 128 pp., ISBN: 9781472967206, h/bk, AUS$22.49 Trim,…
Rose Bay Airport
[Window Title] Seagate Dashboard [Main Instruction] Seagate Dashboard has stopped working [Content] Windows is checking for a solution to the problem... [Cancel]_blankrel="noopener"> Short Empire Flying Boat Cooee at Rose Bay 5 July 1939, courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW…