Cirrus@Austlit

'As a bookseller, Verity Fitzhardinge established the fondly remembered Verity Hewitt bookshop in Canberra. As an inspiring teacher, she had Gough Whitlam and Evdokia Petrov among her pupils. As a linguist, she became fluent in Russian, and as an activist ever supported progressive causes. As an historian, she ventured into far corners of Afghanistan and did pioneering work on Russian contacts with Australia. As ‘a farmer by feeling’, she ran the family orchard and then cattle stud. And as a prolific and talented writer, she left a trove of diaries and letters which Robert Lehane has mined to produce this fascinating account of a life well lived.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Born on a Hunter estuary island, NSW, in 1857, James Clark was orphaned at age two, arrived penniless in Brisbane ten years later, and never looked back. Starting out in Torres Strait at 23, he became the dominant figure in Australia’s pearlshelling industry, The Pearl King. Then, with a young partner, he built one of the nation’s biggest pastoral companies. He ran an oyster business in Moreton Bay that supplied gourmet markets as far away as Perth, and was prominent in Queensland’s yachting and horseracing fraternities. Entrepreneurial, generous, with a reputation for straight-shooting, he lived life to the full.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A man of democratic instincts, of strong if eccentric opinions, and of compassion, William Bland was a wonderfully colourful contributor to life in early Sydney. He was transported to New South Wales in 1814 after killing a fellow naval officer. Decades later, he was fêted as the 'Venerable Patriot of Australia' for working with William Wentworth in securing the colony's first elective legislature. As a doctor, he was renowned for his skill. He helped establish Sydney College, today's Sydney Grammar School. And as an inventor he was convinced that his plans for an airship could reduce the travelling time between Britain and NSW to just a few days.' (Publisher's blurb)