Cirrus@Austlit

'Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy young lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become.

'Albert 'Bert' Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. A month and a half later, Bert enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and the young private was assigned to 14 Battalion D company. By the time they shipped out to Egypt he'd been made a Lance-Corporal.

'On 26 April 1915, 14 Battalion landed at Gallipoli under the command of Brigadier-General Monash's 4th Infantry Brigade. And it was here, in the early hours of 20 May, that Lance-Corporal Albert Jacka proved he was 'the bravest of the brave'. The Turks were gaining ground with a full-scale frontal attack. As his comrades lay dead or dying around him, Jacka single-handedly held off the enemy onslaught. The Turks retreated.

'Word spread of Jacka's lone efforts to recapture the trench and his extraordinary efforts saw him awarded the Victoria Cross, the first for a soldier in World War I. He was a national hero, but Jacka's wartime exploits had only just begun. Moving on to France he battled the Germans at Pozieres, earning a Military Cross for what historian Charles Bean called 'the most dramatic and effective act of individual audacity in the history of the AIF'. Then at Bullecourt, his efforts would again turn the tide against the enemy. There would be more accolades before a sniper's bullet and then gassing at Villers-Bretonneux would send Bert home.

'THE LEGEND OF ALBERT JACKA is an unforgettable story of the bravery and sacrifice of one extraordinary soldier that takes us from the shores of Gallipoli to the battlefields of France, all brought to vivid life by Australia's greatest storyteller, Peter FitzSimons.'  (Publication summary)

The extraordinary, must-read story of the brave, bold Hubert Wilkins - Australia's most adventurous explorer, naturalist, photographer, war hero, aviator, spy and daredevil - brought to life by Australia's greatest storyteller.

'Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived.

'The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography. In 1908 he sailed for England and a job producing films with the Gaumont Film Co. Brave and bold, he became a polar expeditioner, a brilliant war photographer, a spy in the Soviet Union, a pioneering aviator-navigator, a death-defying submariner - all while being an explorer and chronicler of the planet and its life forms that would do Vasco da Gama and Sir David Attenborough proud. As a WW1 photographer he was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire, the only Australian photographer in any war to be decorated. He explored the Antarctic with Sir Ernest Shackleton, led a groundbreaking ornithological study in Australia and was knighted in 1928 for his aviation exploits, but many more astounding achievements would follow. Wilkins' quest for knowledge and polar explorations were lifelong passions and his missions to polar regions aboard the submarine Nautilus the stuff of legend.

'With masterful storytelling skill, Peter FitzSimons illuminates the life of Hubert Wilkins and his incredible achievements. Thrills and spills, derring-do, new worlds discovered - this is the most unforgettable tale of the most extraordinary life lived by any Australian.' (Publication summary)

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero?

'Most Australians have heard of the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. Born in England and emigrating to Queensland in 1883 in his early twenties, Morant was a charming but reckless man who established a reputation as a rider, polo player and writer. He submitted ballads to The Bulletin that were published under the name 'The Breaker' and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend. When appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa, Morant joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers.

'In October 1901 Morant and two other Australians, Lieutenants Peter Handcock and George Witton, were arrested for the murder of Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock were court-martialled and executed in February 1902 as the Boer War was in its closing stages, but the debate over their convictions continues to this day. Does Breaker Morant deserve his iconic status? Who was Harry Morant? What events and passions led him to a conflict that was essentially an Imperial war, played out on a distant continent under a foreign flag? Was he a scapegoat for British war crimes or a criminal himself? With his trademark brilliant command of story, Peter FitzSimons unravels the many myths and fictions that surround the life of Harry Morant. The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'The Breaker' and the part he played in the Boer War are astonishing - and, in the hands of this master storyteller, make compelling reading.' (Publication summary)

"Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the West Indies, the Bounty’s crew found themselves in a tropical paradise. Five months later, they did not want to leave. Under the leadership of Fletcher Christian most of the crew mutinied soon after sailing from Tahiti, setting Captain William Bligh and 18 loyal crewmen adrift in a small open boat. In one of history’s great feats of seamanship, Bligh navigated this tiny vessel for 3618 nautical miles to Timor.

"The mutineers sailed back to Tahiti, where most remained and were later tried for mutiny. But Christian, along with eight fellow mutineers, sailed off into the unknown, eventually discovering the isolated Pitcairn Island and settling there."

Source: Publisher's blurb. 

"The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph. A largely Australian force, commanded by Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle.

"Monash planned every detail meticulously, with nothing left to chance. Integrated use of tanks, planes, infantry, wireless (and even carrier pigeons!) was the basis: everyone used the same maps, with updated versions delivered by motorbike despatch riders to senior commanders. Each infantry battalion was allocated to a tank group, and they advanced together. Supplies and ammunition were dropped as needed from planes. The losses were relatively few.

"Monash planned for the battle to last for 90 minutes – in the end it went for 93. What happened in those minutes changed the way the British fought battles, and the tactics and strategies used by the Allies."

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller.

'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago.'

'Melbourne, 20 August 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the first Europeans to cross the harsh Australian continent, the Victorian Exploring Expedition sets off, farewelled by 15,000 cheering well-wishers. Led by Robert O'Hara Burke, a brave man totally lacking in the bush skills necessary for his task; surveyor and meteorologist William Wills; and 17 others, the expedition took 20 tons of equipment carried on six wagons, 23 horses and 26 camels.

'Almost immediately plagued by disputes and sackings, the expeditioners battled the extremes of the Australian landscape and weather: its deserts, the boggy mangrove swamps of the Gulf, the searing heat and flooding rains. Food ran short and, unable to live off the land, the men nevertheless mostly spurned the offers of help from the local Indigenous people.

'In desperation, leaving the rest of the party at the expedition's depot on Coopers Creek, Burke, Wills, Charley Gray and John King made a dash for the Gulf in December 1860. Bad luck and bad management would see them miss by just hours a rendezvous back at Coopers Creek, leaving them stranded in the wilderness with practically no supplies. Only King survived to tell the tale. Yet, despite their tragic fates, the names of Burke and Wills have become synonymous with perseverance and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. They live on in our nation's history - and their story remains immediate and compelling.' (Publication Summary)

'You gotta love this country when an AFL legend takes his mum instead of his girlfriend to the Brownlow, when an Australian cricket captain joins a bunch of fourteen year olds for a bit of street cricket, when a bloke wins the Australian Marbles Championship after being reunited with the tom-bowlers his brother threw away forty years ago, and when the dry cleaner down the road is called Drop Your Pants...Peter FitzSimons celebrates the good, the generous, the kind and the downright strange in this hilarious and heart- warming collection of stories from daily life and grassroots sporting fields around the country. It's enough for you to puff out your chest and say, Gotta Love This Country!..' (Source: TROVE)

'Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers' ploughs.

'Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy's brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an Australian republican channelling the spirit of Eureka?

'Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of this nation's history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly's early days in Beveridge, Victoria, in the mid-1800s, to the Felons' Apprehension Act, which made it possible for anyone to shoot the Kelly gang, to Ned's appearance in his now-famous armour, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim ‘He is the devil!' and ‘He is the bunyip!', FitzSimons brings the history of Ned Kelly and his gang exuberantly to life, weighing in on all of the myths, legends and controversies generated by this compelling and divisive Irish-Australian rebel.' (Publisher's blurb)