'Castle to Colony tells the story of a nineteenth-century European who saw the Australian landscape and its inhabitants, Black and White, with remarkably fresh eyes. There was liveliness in everything Lucy did, and the people and things she records are lively too. It's a liveliness nicely mirrored in Meg's Vivers' prose.
'But also this is also a woman's story. Of all the depictions of colonial Australia which survive from a woman's point of view, Lucy Gray's is among the richest and best. For that reason alone this book is an enormously valuable addition to out understanding of Australian history.' (Source: Back cover)
An Irish Engineer
Brisbane
:
Copyright Publishing
,
2013
7419828
2013
single work
biography
'Companion book to Castle to Colony by the same author. Adventures and achievements of an Irish Engineer who traveled the world in the second half of the 1800s, during which time he played a significant role in the Japanese Meiji Restoration. Bridges, buildings, tea processing and sugar mill machinery, mining engineering - all were part of the amazingly productive life of Thomas Waters. ' (Publication summary)
'The use of the word 'remarkable' in the sub-title of this fascinating book is wholly justified. Some of the most important strands of mid-nineteenth century British and imperial history shaped the life of this woman who died so tragically young. Fortunately, she and the members of her large, extended family were inveterate letter writers and Lucy also kept a diary and detailed journals for the years she spent as a governess in New Zealand and later as the wife of a grazier in northern Queensland, near Hughenden, and farmer in New Zealand. She also kept another record of her experiences in her sketches and paintings and this volume is abundantly provided with illustrations to complement the extensive extracts that Vivers has chosen from the letters, diary and journals. In many places Lucy is allowed to tell her own story without scholarly mediation and Vivers shows both skill and sensitivity in her choice of extracts and the narrative connections she makes to carry the story forward. Perhaps the most important feature of this well researched work is that we are able to hear Lucy's voice as she recorded her impressions of the people, the places and the landscapes of the Antipodean colonies where she was a relatively brief resident but remarkably acute observer.' (Introduction)
'The use of the word 'remarkable' in the sub-title of this fascinating book is wholly justified. Some of the most important strands of mid-nineteenth century British and imperial history shaped the life of this woman who died so tragically young. Fortunately, she and the members of her large, extended family were inveterate letter writers and Lucy also kept a diary and detailed journals for the years she spent as a governess in New Zealand and later as the wife of a grazier in northern Queensland, near Hughenden, and farmer in New Zealand. She also kept another record of her experiences in her sketches and paintings and this volume is abundantly provided with illustrations to complement the extensive extracts that Vivers has chosen from the letters, diary and journals. In many places Lucy is allowed to tell her own story without scholarly mediation and Vivers shows both skill and sensitivity in her choice of extracts and the narrative connections she makes to carry the story forward. Perhaps the most important feature of this well researched work is that we are able to hear Lucy's voice as she recorded her impressions of the people, the places and the landscapes of the Antipodean colonies where she was a relatively brief resident but remarkably acute observer.' (Introduction)
