'Friedrich Gerstäcker, the most illustrious and prolific of German travel writers, set foot in Australia in March 1851, having walked across the Andes, traipsed the goldfields of California, and sailed over the Pacific in search of new adventures.
'Gerstäcker found adventures aplenty in Australia. He rowed and trekked down the Murray, absorbed the excitement triggered by the discovery of gold, visited his countrymen in South Australia, and trained his outsider's eyes on a colonial society gripped by profound change.
'In this translated edition of Gerstäcker's book Australien, his lively travelogue is made available for the first time in English. Rarely has Australia's colonial past been presented with such insight, humour and entertainment.' (Publication summary : Australia : A German Traveller in the Age of Gold)
'Peter Monteath’s publication of an English-language version of Gerstäcker’s Australien makes a worthwhile contribution to early Australian history. Many authors wrote of their travels in Australia; for example, George Theodore Blakers’ account of life in Australia from 1849-64; Anthony Trollope’s travels in the early 1870s in Australia and New Zealand, and Adolph Würfel, influenced by Trollope, (K.M. Reynolds, Romanticism, Culture and Migration – the diary of Adolf Würfel) covering the period from 1876-1877, and Mark Twain, The Wayward Tourist (1895). Also there were settlers, who wrote of their first-hand experiences in Australia.' (Introduction)
'Peter Monteath’s publication of an English-language version of Gerstäcker’s Australien makes a worthwhile contribution to early Australian history. Many authors wrote of their travels in Australia; for example, George Theodore Blakers’ account of life in Australia from 1849-64; Anthony Trollope’s travels in the early 1870s in Australia and New Zealand, and Adolph Würfel, influenced by Trollope, (K.M. Reynolds, Romanticism, Culture and Migration – the diary of Adolf Würfel) covering the period from 1876-1877, and Mark Twain, The Wayward Tourist (1895). Also there were settlers, who wrote of their first-hand experiences in Australia.' (Introduction)
