Cirrus@Austlit

'The little known story of how the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte ingratiated himself with an English family on the South Atlantic island of St Helena, and the devastating effect on them for the rest of their lives in England and Australia.

'After Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he was sent into exile on Saint Helena. He became an 'eagle in a cage', reduced from the most powerful figure in Europe to a prisoner on a rock in the South Atlantic. But the fallen emperor was charmed by the pretty teenage daughter of a local merchant, Betsy Balcombe.

'Anne Whitehead brings to life Napoleon's last years on Saint Helena, revealing the central role of the Balcombe family. She also lays to rest two centuries of speculation about Betsy's relationship with Napoleon.

'After Napoleon's death, Betsy travelled to Australia in 1823 with her father, who was appointed the first Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales. When the family lost their fortune, she returned to London and published a memoir which made her a celebrity.

'With her extraordinary connections to royalty and high society, Betsy Balcombe led a life worthy of a Regency romance, but she was always fighting for her independence. This new account reveals Napoleon at his most vulnerable, human and reflective, and a woman caught in some of the most dramatic events of her time.' (Publication summary)

'Mary Cameron was self-confident, an aspirant writer and feminist - but she also took with her white muslin for a wedding dress; and she married a near illiterate shearer William Gilmore. Their socialist dream foundered before very long and they had to earn their passage home with their baby son - through the impossibly remote country communities of Paraguay and the vast estancias of Argentina to Patagonia, the 'end of the earth' made famous by Darwin and Bruce Chatwin. Anne Whitehead brilliantly counterpoints her own wanderings with Mary's. After seven years in South America the Gilmores sailed home. Poet and national icon, Mary Gilmore's portrait now graces the Australian USD 10 note.' (Publication summary)

'Winner 1998 NSW Premier's Australian History Award. Also shortlisted in the 1998 Kibble and Dobbie Awards, and the 1997 Age Book of the Year selection. "An erudic, beautifully researched work of history which knits together the stories of Paraquay and Australian emigration as a quest for Utopia." Judges' comment - 1998 NSW Premiers Award. In the 1890s a brave band of ordinary Australians sailed out through Sydney Heads, to found a socialist Utopia in South America. Under the charismatic William Lane, over 500 settlers created a "New Australia" in the Paraguayan jungle. Their hopes soon collapsed in turmoil. many, including Mary Gilmore, returned home. Others stayed on wit their families, learning Spanish and the Indian language and becoming part of the culture of their adopted country. These descendants of socialists also endured the longest surviving right-wing dictatorship in the Western hemisphere.' (Publication summary)

'The story revolves around Tom Paine Shane Porteous, a complex intelligent man in his mid-thirties. The film opens with a classroom confrontation between Tom and his students as he struggles and fails to keep his grip. Those who could help him also fail to reach out to him or to meet his need.

'Admitted to a psychiatric hospital, Tom forms a tender, sometimes violent relationship with another young patient, Penny Downy. Together they learn how to become part of society again.'

Source:

Anne Whitehead, 'Tasmanian Film Corporation', Metro Magazine 56 (Winter 1981): pp.48-49.