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y separately published work icon Tasmanian Friends and Foes, Feathered, Furred, and Finned : A Family Chronicle of Country Life, Natural History, and Veritable Adventure single work   children's fiction   prose   children's   travel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1880... 1880 Tasmanian Friends and Foes, Feathered, Furred, and Finned : A Family Chronicle of Country Life, Natural History, and Veritable Adventure
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Lina decides to write to her English cousin Sibyl about the exciting and unusual flora and fauna of Tasmania. She does so through relating anecdotes about encounters with wildlife. The book also contains beautiful colour plates depicting some of the flora and fauna mentioned.

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Notes

  • Dedication: This volume is affectionately dedicated to Ethel and Gregory, Tasmanian-born children of Sir Thomas Gore Browne, K.C.M.G. etc., formerly Governor of Tasmania; Mary Violet, daughter of Major-General P.Maxwell; Stanislaus, Son of Count Odoardo Colacicchi; Rowland, son of Colonel T. Vaughton; and to my other grand-nieces and nephews in Europe and Australia, with the hope that they may all share that love of nature which, from childhood to age, I have found so precious a companion. Louisa A.Meredith.
  • Users are warned that this work contains terminology that reflects attitudes or language used at the time of publication that are considered inappropriate today.
  • Warning: Meredith recounts an incident whereby Aboriginal people are accused of murdering a settler family. Her description of the Palawa people of Tasmania and distortion of facts is offensive and should be treated with caution.

  • The Palawa people are one of two groups who are descendants of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. The Palawa people are the descendants of the Aborigines taken to the islands in Bass Strait in 1835, after becoming the wives of European sealers. The other group known as Lia Pootah are the descendants of the Aborigines who remained on mainland Tasmania as servants and those who managed to remain in small tribal groups.

    Source: McFarlane, I. Beyond Awakening: The Aboriginal tribes of North West Tasmania. Fullers Bookshop, 2008.

    Flood, J. The Original Australian of Aboriginal People. Allen and Unwin, 2006.

  • For other works listed in AustLit about the Palawa people follow the 'Palawa Tasmanian' link in the list of General subjects above.

Affiliation Notes

  • Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing

    Louisa Anne Meredith (nee Tawmley, 1812-1895) was an artist, poet, novelist and travel writer. Her Tasmanian Friends and Foes Feathered, Furred and Finned is an account of the fauna of Tasmania, featuring autobiographical anecdotes from her family's daily life. Each chapter opens withan epigraph, and the voice shifts from first to third person, but with a conversational tone. Many sections are accounts of day trips around Tasmania, and family gossip. The book was elaborately illustrated with coloured plates and black and white sketches of Tasmanian wildlife and flora. This is one of Meredith's later books, and the second edition was published following her husband Charles Meredith's death in 1880. She also wrote Notes and Sketches of New South Wales, During a Residence in that Colony from 1839 to 1844 (1844), My Home in Tasmania, during a Residence of Nine Years (1852) and Travels and Stories in our Gold Colonies (1865).

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Related Works

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Works about this Work

Hidden Women of History: the Australian Children’s Author Who Captured the Bush – before May Gibbs’ Australiana Empire Lauren Weber , Sara Fernandes , 2025 single work essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 7 January 2025;
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).
Changing Perspectives : The Implied Reader in Australian Children's Literature 1841-1994 H. M. Saxby , 1995 single work criticism
— Appears in: Children's Literature in Education , March vol. 26 no. 1 1995; (p. 25-38)
Changing Perspectives : The Implied Reader in Australian Children's Literature 1841-1994 H. M. Saxby , 1995 single work criticism
— Appears in: Children's Literature in Education , March vol. 26 no. 1 1995; (p. 25-38)
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).
Hidden Women of History: the Australian Children’s Author Who Captured the Bush – before May Gibbs’ Australiana Empire Lauren Weber , Sara Fernandes , 2025 single work essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 7 January 2025;
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (3)
Last amended 25 Mar 2021 11:00:30
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  • 1800-1899
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