Issue Details: First known date: 1854... 1854 Black Thursday : The Great Bush Fire of Victoria
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Wiliam Howitt investigates and reflects on the Victorian 'Black Thursday' bushfires, 6 February 1851.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Surviving Black Thursday : The Great Bushfire of 1851 Grace Moore , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Victorian Settler Narratives : Emigrants, Cosmopolitans and Returnees in Nineteenth-Century Literature 2011; (p. 129-140)

'This chapter examines how the devastation of a bushfire in 1851 in Australia challenged the claims of emigration advocates that it was possible simply to pack up one's life and begin again on the other side of the world through an examination of a range of literary, journalistic and epistolary responses to bushfires. It also explains how fictional accounts of bushfires oppose themselves to newspaper stories of destruction. One of the more terrifying blazes to challenge nineteenth-century settler society was the sequence of fires that took place on what came to be known as 'Black Thursday'. Writing in Cassell's Illustrated Family Paper in 1854, William Howitt emphasized the disaster's impact on settler society by comparing it to events like the English Revolution of 1688. The main purpose of the poem by George Wright and entitled 'Black Thursday' was to encourage those who had been spared the worst effects of the inferno to provide assistance to its victims.'

Source: Abstract.

Truth and Terror in Fire's Ancient Kingdom John Blay , 2009 single work essay
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , April vol. 4 no. 3 2009; (p. 12-13)
In the wake of the 2009 Black Saturday fires, John Blay examines William Howitt's writing about the 1851 Victorian Black Thursday fires. Blay concludes: 'How can we manage to sort truth from terror when we don't have in our popular story the words for different forms of fire? Fire-prone Australia must rejig its language'.
Truth and Terror in Fire's Ancient Kingdom John Blay , 2009 single work essay
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , April vol. 4 no. 3 2009; (p. 12-13)
In the wake of the 2009 Black Saturday fires, John Blay examines William Howitt's writing about the 1851 Victorian Black Thursday fires. Blay concludes: 'How can we manage to sort truth from terror when we don't have in our popular story the words for different forms of fire? Fire-prone Australia must rejig its language'.
Surviving Black Thursday : The Great Bushfire of 1851 Grace Moore , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Victorian Settler Narratives : Emigrants, Cosmopolitans and Returnees in Nineteenth-Century Literature 2011; (p. 129-140)

'This chapter examines how the devastation of a bushfire in 1851 in Australia challenged the claims of emigration advocates that it was possible simply to pack up one's life and begin again on the other side of the world through an examination of a range of literary, journalistic and epistolary responses to bushfires. It also explains how fictional accounts of bushfires oppose themselves to newspaper stories of destruction. One of the more terrifying blazes to challenge nineteenth-century settler society was the sequence of fires that took place on what came to be known as 'Black Thursday'. Writing in Cassell's Illustrated Family Paper in 1854, William Howitt emphasized the disaster's impact on settler society by comparing it to events like the English Revolution of 1688. The main purpose of the poem by George Wright and entitled 'Black Thursday' was to encourage those who had been spared the worst effects of the inferno to provide assistance to its victims.'

Source: Abstract.

Last amended 10 May 2022 12:14:57
Subjects:
  • Victoria,
  • 1851
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