image of person or book cover 5776934545360205877.png
y separately published work icon My Home in Tasmania, During a Residence of Nine Years single work   autobiography   prose   travel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1852... 1852 My Home in Tasmania, During a Residence of Nine Years
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Affiliation Notes

  • Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing

    Louisa Anne Meredith (nee Tawmley, 1812-1895) was an artist, poet, novelist and travel writer. She first published her two volume My Home in Tasmania in 1852 under the name Mrs. Charles Meredith. This illustrated narrative described her nine years in Britain's remote colony, with Meredith portraying the society that her family engaged with, and their domestic details. It was predominantly concerned with nature, providing a portrait of the countryside in this foreign land. Meredith's travel narrative was later published in one volume in an American edition (1853), and she also published Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, During a Residence in that Colony from 1839 to 1844 (1844), Travels and Stories in our Gold Colonies (1865) and Tasmanian Friends and Foes Feathered, Furred and Finned: A Family Chronicle of Country Life, Natural History, and Veritable Adventure (1881).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      John Murray ,
      1852 .
      image of person or book cover 5776934545360205877.png
      Link: 21275237Full text document Sighted: 10/03/2021
      Extent: 2 v.p.
      Description: illus.
      Written as: Mrs Charles Meredith
      Note/s:
      • Frontispiece : Hobarton (vol.1) and Lath Hall (vol.2) from sketches by the Bishop of Tasmania.
      • Ferguson 12506
      • Dedication: To Our Most Gracious and Beloved Queen, This simple chronicle of nine years, passed in one of Her Majesty's most remote Colonies, and devoted to the description of scenes and objects familiar to thousands of her faithful subjects, is, in the humble hope of Her Royal approval, and with the most respectful and loyal attachment, inscribed by Her Majesty's Obedient humble Servant, Louisa Anne Meredith.

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of Tasmania State Library of Tasmania
      Local Id: TL 919.46 MER 1852
    • New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Bunce and Brother ,
      1853 .
      Alternative title: My Home in Tasmania, or, Nine Years in Australia
      Extent: x, 370p.p.
      Description: 6 leaves of plates : illus.
      Note/s:
      • Title page verso has an short explanation of the origin of Tasmania
      • Preface to the American edition is signed 'Am Publishers'.
      • Spine title: My Home in Tasmania.
      • Ferguson 12507
    • Adelaide, South Australia,: Sullivan's Cove , 1979 .
      Alternative title: My Home in Tasmania
      Extent: xvi, 221p.p.
      Edition info: Limited edition of 500 numbered copies, the first ten of which are bound in leather.
      Description: 16 p. of plates : illus.
      ISBN: 0909442118

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

Louisa Meredith’s Idea of Home : Imagined Identity in Colonial Travel Writing Elizabeth Miller , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literature & Aesthetics , vol. 24 no. 2 2014; (p. 63-82)

'In 1852, a book was dedicated to “our most gracious and beloved Queen.” It professed to be a “simple chronicle of nine years passed in one of Her Majesty’s most remote colonies.”  The book was My Home in Tasmania, During a Residence of Nine Years and its author was Louisa Meredith, an English woman who had emigrated from Britain to the Australian colonies with her husband Charles, thirteen years earlier. The Merediths intended to live in the colonies for five years, before returning “home” to Britain, something they never did.Charles Meredith had lived in the Australian colonies since 1821, and when Lieutenant-Governor Arthur denied Charles a land grant in Tasmania, he moved to New South Wales (NSW). He returned to England in 1838, and sailed back to the colonies the following year, married to his cousin Louisa, who was expecting their first child. After spending her first years as a colonist in NSW, Louisa Meredith dismissed Sydney as hot, glaring and dusty, and thought its inhabitants pretentiously imitated British social customs. She understood emancipists to be wealthy, but lacking taste and education, and said convicts struggled with alcoholism, while the indigenous population was savage and brutal. In short, she was unimpressed and welcomed the family’s move to Tasmania in 1844. Meredith found more visual reminders of the English landscape there, and the building of new cultural institutions offered settlers uncontested areas for cultivating a replica of English society, which endeared the colony to her.'  (Introduction)

Making Tasmania Home: Louisa Meredith's Colonizing Prose Patricia Grimshaw , Ann Standish , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies , vol. 28 no. 1 2007; (p. 1-17)
y separately published work icon In the Service of Infinite and Glorious Creation: The Nature Writing of Louisa Anne Meredith Kordula Dunscombe , St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2009 Z975333 1998 single work criticism Dunscombe discuss the work of Louisa Anne Meredith positing that the attention she gives to the natural environment in her novels has an 'overt conservationist message' (17) and engages with issues of domination, exploitation and general disrespect for the environment. Dunscombe argues that Meredith 'strove to foster in her readers a multi-dimensional appreciation of the natural world, encompassing emotional, spiritual, ethical, aesthetic, cultural scientific and practical understandings' (16). Dunscombe admires Meredith's work as an example of 19th century environmentalism and also for Merediths awareness and foregrounding 'of her less than authoratative status as woman and author' (as opposed to the more authoratitive position of male-professional environmentalist). Dunscombe believes that 'Meredith's well-established commkitment to close personal observation is the backbone of her scientific approach' (24) while her 'earnest purpose is to 'inculcate a love and respect for nature by using all the means at her disposal' (29).
(Rear)-Endings and Up-Endings : Antipodean Seaside Studies in Louisa Anne Meredith's My Home in Tasmania Judith Johnston , 1998 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Victorian Studies Journal , vol. 4 no. 1998; (p. 67-79)
Making Tasmania Home: Louisa Meredith's Colonizing Prose Patricia Grimshaw , Ann Standish , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies , vol. 28 no. 1 2007; (p. 1-17)
(Rear)-Endings and Up-Endings : Antipodean Seaside Studies in Louisa Anne Meredith's My Home in Tasmania Judith Johnston , 1998 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Victorian Studies Journal , vol. 4 no. 1998; (p. 67-79)
y separately published work icon In the Service of Infinite and Glorious Creation: The Nature Writing of Louisa Anne Meredith Kordula Dunscombe , St Lucia : AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2009 Z975333 1998 single work criticism Dunscombe discuss the work of Louisa Anne Meredith positing that the attention she gives to the natural environment in her novels has an 'overt conservationist message' (17) and engages with issues of domination, exploitation and general disrespect for the environment. Dunscombe argues that Meredith 'strove to foster in her readers a multi-dimensional appreciation of the natural world, encompassing emotional, spiritual, ethical, aesthetic, cultural scientific and practical understandings' (16). Dunscombe admires Meredith's work as an example of 19th century environmentalism and also for Merediths awareness and foregrounding 'of her less than authoratative status as woman and author' (as opposed to the more authoratitive position of male-professional environmentalist). Dunscombe believes that 'Meredith's well-established commkitment to close personal observation is the backbone of her scientific approach' (24) while her 'earnest purpose is to 'inculcate a love and respect for nature by using all the means at her disposal' (29).
Louisa Meredith’s Idea of Home : Imagined Identity in Colonial Travel Writing Elizabeth Miller , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Literature & Aesthetics , vol. 24 no. 2 2014; (p. 63-82)

'In 1852, a book was dedicated to “our most gracious and beloved Queen.” It professed to be a “simple chronicle of nine years passed in one of Her Majesty’s most remote colonies.”  The book was My Home in Tasmania, During a Residence of Nine Years and its author was Louisa Meredith, an English woman who had emigrated from Britain to the Australian colonies with her husband Charles, thirteen years earlier. The Merediths intended to live in the colonies for five years, before returning “home” to Britain, something they never did.Charles Meredith had lived in the Australian colonies since 1821, and when Lieutenant-Governor Arthur denied Charles a land grant in Tasmania, he moved to New South Wales (NSW). He returned to England in 1838, and sailed back to the colonies the following year, married to his cousin Louisa, who was expecting their first child. After spending her first years as a colonist in NSW, Louisa Meredith dismissed Sydney as hot, glaring and dusty, and thought its inhabitants pretentiously imitated British social customs. She understood emancipists to be wealthy, but lacking taste and education, and said convicts struggled with alcoholism, while the indigenous population was savage and brutal. In short, she was unimpressed and welcomed the family’s move to Tasmania in 1844. Meredith found more visual reminders of the English landscape there, and the building of new cultural institutions offered settlers uncontested areas for cultivating a replica of English society, which endeared the colony to her.'  (Introduction)

Last amended 25 Mar 2021 10:59:05
X