Cooper's Creek
Cooper's Creek : Tragedy and Adventure in the Australian Outback;
Cooper's Creek : The Real Story of Burke and Wills
London
:
Hamish Hamilton
,
1963
Z995999
1963
single work
prose
'In 1860, an expedition set out from Melbourne, Australia, into the
interior of the country, with the mission to find a route to the
northern coast. Headed by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills,
the party of adventurers, scientists, and camels set out into the
outback hoping to find enough water and to keep adequate food stores for
their trek into the bush. Almost one year later, Burke, Wills, and two
others from their party, Gray and King, reached the northern shore but
on their journey back, they were stranded at Cooper's Creek where all
but King perished. Cooper's Creek is a gripping, intense
historical narrative about the harshness of the Australian outback and
the people who were brave enough to go into the very depths of that
uncharted country.' (Publisher's blurb)
Gallipoli
London
:
Hamish Hamilton
,
1956
Z995979
1956
single work
prose
war literature
'A century has now gone by, yet the Gallipoli campaign of 1915-16 is still infamous as arguably the most ill conceived, badly led and pointless campaign of the entire First World War. The brainchild of Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, following Turkey's entry into the war on the German side, its ultimate objective was to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in western Turkey, thus allowing the Allies to take control of the eastern Mediterranean and increase pressure on the Central Powers to drain manpower from the vital Western Front.
'From the very beginning of the first landings, however, the campaign went awry, and countless casualties. The Allied commanders were ignorant of the terrain, and seriously underestimated the Turkish army which had been bolstered by their German allies. Thus the Allies found their campaign staled from the off and their troops hopelessly entrenched on the hillsides for long agonising months, through the burning summer and bitter winter, in appalling, dysentery-ridden conditions. By January 1916, the death toll stood at 21,000 British troops, 11,000 Australian and New Zealand, and 87,000 Turkish and the decision was made to withdraw, which in itself, ironically, was deemed to be a success.' (Publication summary from Allen & Unwin, 2015 edition)
