Timeless Land (Australian classics)

By Eleanor Dark

Book Overview

First published in 1941, Eleanor Dark's classic novel of the early settlement of Australia is a story of hardship, cruelty and danger. Above all it is the story of conflict: between the Aborigines and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0207142661
• ISBN13: 9780207142666
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Angus And Robertson
• Length: 446 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Timeless Land

This is a richly colorful story of the first five years of English settlement in Australia, and of the black people whose life and culture and natural gaiety were so cruelly destroyed in that short time. The story is a dramatic one, eloquently told. The few boatloads of convicts who land in Sydney Harbor in 1788 make poor pioneer stock indeed. That they survive at all is due to the courage and wisdom of their Captain Phillips. His story is told here as is that of a fictional character, Andrew prentice, a red-headed convict who escapes, takes a native wife, and flourishes with her in the wilds while his fellow English back at the settlement are near starvation. Parallel to the slow establishment of the white colony runs the sad history of the black men's demoralization, personified in Bellilong, an historical figure and a leader in his tribe, who develops a fatal friendliness toward the English. A visit to London completes his undoing, and symbolizes the coming degeneracy of his whole race. An excellent story and fresh background make this Mrs. Dark's most ambitious and important novel.