The adventures of an English surgeon, who had emigrated with his family to Tasmania. Various aspects of early colonial life are touched upon including bushrangers and aborigines. The 'Black War' in Tasmania is dealt with in Chapter XVIII, and Buckley, the wild white man of Port Phillip, in Chapter XIX. The second part of the book is devoted to 'The Adventures of Harry Delane' - a young Tasmanian in England. (John Alexander Ferguson Bibliography of Australia. Volume VII. (1969):141).
Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing
English born Richard Rowe (1828-1879) was a journalist, tutor and prolific author. Roughing It in Van Diemen's Land presented a travel narrative of his experience of Van Diemen's Land. Adventurous and dramatic, these stories were written in a novelistic style, describing bush rangers, Aboriginal people, and wildlife in a colourful manner. The volume included a second work, The Adventures of Harry Delane that was set in Australia, but fictional. Rowe also published under the names Edward Howe and Charles Camden, including Boy in the Bush (1869).
