Books

The true story of Horrie the Wog-Dog who was adopted by the Australian Signal Platoon of the Machine Gun Battalion, in spite of all rules against keeping pets, and how Horrie not only won his stripes as a valuable addition to the group but had the...

The final 26 tales collected by the author of the best-selling Australian Legendary Tales (1896) and More Australian Legendary Tales (1898), both in ETT Imprint's list. Illustrated by Nora Heysen, this was only published once in 1930, and is now in...

The first book written on the natural history of life on the Nullabor Plain, was written by station-master A. G. Bolam and first published in 1923. The author recollects his times with Aboriginal trackers and workers in and around Ooldeah, as the great...

The Desert Column is based on the diaries that Idriess kept throughout the war. Published in 1932, it is one of Idriess' earliest works. Harry Chauvel noted in the foreword that it was the only book of the campaign that to his knowledge was "viewed...

Harold Bell Lasseter claimed to have found an immense reef of gold in Central Australia and he dissapeared while searching for the reef in 1930. Lasseter claims in his diary that he had rediscovered the reef and had pegged and claimed the area (but gave...

Thomas Wentworth Wills is an Australian Icarus. Having grown up among the Djabwurrung people in western Victoria, he was sent to the Rugby school in England. Returning in 1856, he promptly revolutionised colonial cricket and opened the door for the...

'I felt certain there must be gold in those hills, Jack', wrote a prospector to Ion Idriess, 'but I know very little about the game.' And so Jack Idriess wrote Prospecting for Gold in 1931. This is the 21st edition and known...

The story of survivors of the shipwreck of the Charles Eaton in the Torres Strait in 1834, through the eyes of young John Ireland who befriends the Mer Islanders; and their eventual rescue.

The true story of Harold Bell Lasseter's discovery of a massive gold reef in Central Australia, his venture into the interior to find it again using camel, trucks and aeroplane; and his disappearance, lost among Aboriginal tribes in the Central Desert.

Never shy of voicing an opinion, artist Margaret Preston launched into print on a variety of subjects from flower arranging and furnishing a bedroom, to Aboriginal art and design, pokerwork, pottery and Wood-blocking. Selected from the pages of...

With authenticity that sometimes surprises the reader, Idriess introduces us to Aboriginals from Northern Australia, Papuan head- hunters, and Islanders around the Great Barrier Reef, all still in the colonial phase of European contact. Chinese gold...

It would be hard to find a more satisfying hero than the young warrior Red Kangaroo, who by his mental and physical prowess became a chief of his tribe - the revered and powerful Red Chief of the Gunnedah district in northern New South Wales. His story...

The first book to collate and explain the many fascinating elements of Aboriginal culture; the song cycles and stories, artefacts, landmarks, characters and customs, by the author of Wild Cat Falling and Master of the Ghost Dreaming.

This book is the last interview with Ion Idriess, prompted by the the ABC Radio’s Tim Bowden, for a possible ABC Radio program that did not eventuate. Within this book Idriess talks of his early years in Broken Hill, he tells of his earliest writing for...

Christopher Columbus discovered Papaya, extraordinary 'fruit of the angels', in the 15th century when he first set foot in the Caribbean. Now Hilary Roots takes you along her discovery of the same amazing Papaya, or Pawpaw, as it's known in some...

Ellen Anderson's Aboriginal Dreaming stories, as recorded by C.W. Peck in the 1920s and 1930s, evidence the rich oral tradition of the Indigenous people of eastern Australia. Dealing with plants and animals, the physical environment, cultural practices...

Bowden tells his life growing up in a very sedate Tasmania, and first entrance into journalism, and the ABC. Very funny, and full of notable people and pratfalls.

In 1923, Philippa Bridges, sister to the Governor of South Australia decided to go "overlanding across the Continent and taking a homeward bound ship from Darwin", intending to travel “unhurriedly in the same fashion as the dwellers themselves did."...

The second publication of Australian Aboriginal myths and legends as collected in the field by Katie Langloh Parker in the 1890s, and first published in 1898. This book holds the first publication by an Aboriginal artist, Tommy McRae, whose drawings form...

Jack Davis: The Maker of History contains essays by several prominent Australians that offer new readings and different perspectives on the work of this poet, storyteller, playwright, politician and humanitarian. Various aspects of Davis's work are...

Crossing the Dead Heart is a classic narrative of modern exploration - and follows the first crossing of the Simpson desert by the author in 1939. From Charlotte Waters Madigan travelled by camel, camping at Andado Bore before heading east through the...

Inthese pages Ion Idriess has brought together stories gathered and lived in his happy battling years in the wild lands of Australia's Far North and the islands beyond. Stories of gold and pearls, of land and cattle, of the search for wealth in dangerous...

Large format book with 100 photographs showing changing life in small communities around the Barrington Tops in northern New South Wales. These photographs were taken by Edgar Marceau, whose grandfather Joseph was exiled to Australia from Quebec in 1840...

This memoir by Nurse Jean Finlayson is about her life ministering for those in remote centres of Central Australia, from Oonadatta to Alice Springs during World War One. She was a close friend of the Reverend John Flynn and Reverend Harland of Oonadatta,...

From 1872 to 1939, a significant number of Australian and New Zealand artists were chosen for exhibition at the annual French Salons. The imprimatur of the Salons bestowed prestige, publicity and visibility, and increased an artist’s saleability, both at...

The first publication of the author's selected letters 1933-1937, gives us an insight into the working method and mind of the best-selling author, as he tries to grapple with the making of the Sidney Kidman story - The Cattle King. Man Tracks and several...

The first publication of Australian Aboriginal myths and legends as collected in the field by Katie Langloh Parker in the 1890s, and first published in 1896. This is also the first publication by an Aboriginal artist, at the time not identified, but from...

As John Woinarski, of Charles Darwin Universityhas stated: “The most formative book for me was H.H. Finlayson’s 1935 classic The Red Centre… Finlayson was the last to collect and record many of these mammal species: he witnessed this loss. But in his...

A study of Arthur Upfield and his long-term relationship with Albermarle station, in north-western NSW from the early 1920s, where he found so many characters and plots for his Bony novels, featuring an Aboriginal detective. Upfield's letters to EV...

An autobiography with a difference - its funny. The great ABC journalist, now in his 80s, skates through the absurdity of the oddments of memory, and of his exhilerating times reporting around the world to Australian homes.

A very detailed and intimate description of the life, personal and tribal, of the Central Australian Aboriginals; their characteristics, beliefs and superstitions; their tools and weapons; together with a discussion of the results of their contacts with...

In the summer of 1967-68 Rod Ledingham was on a mapping high on the Antarctic plateau, driving a sledge dog team. He had been flown in by a light aircraft to take over the other dog team, but after their field work had ended, the aircraft crashed on...

The best-selling book on the Australian artist was originally prepared by Penguin to support the 1985 Preston travelling exhibition. Elizabeth Butel lookat the vibrant art and craft of Australia's most popular woman artist through the Art Gallery of New...

Former broadcasting journalist, Kiwi-born author, Hilary Roots went the South Pacific island for a five day holiday in 1975. Destiny sowed an unexpected path, scattering it with joys and sorrows. Her life’s companion, a Swiss-German scuba-diver and...

Anne Rosalind Geddes was born on 15 December 1940 in Ceylon where her father Eric managed a tea plantation. Before she was two-years-old it seemed that the Japanese might invade Ceylon and she and her mother Margaret left Colombo Harbour on board an...

The most influential book of stories that shaped the new Australian women's writing is back. Wrappings was first published in 1974, and as Helen Garner wrote at the time: "I liked Wrappings… The writing is highly charged, painstakingly wroiught, often...

Pioneer Tales of Australias Northern Waters: The treacherous and beautiful Coral Sea is the background for this story of the nineteenth century adventures on perilous voyages into its waters in search of the beche-de-mer and pearl shell; of the savage...

Essington Holt is out for revenge. The Australian millionaire and sometime art forger has been kidnapped, humiliated, mutilated and exchanged for three million dollars and a valuable painting. Now he wants to bring the criminals to justice - privately.

A very detailed and intimate description of the life, personal and tribal, of the Central Australian Aboriginals; their characteristics, beliefs and superstitions; their tools and weapons; together with a discussion of the results of their contacts with...

The third thriller by this Australian artist and novelist featuring Essington Holt, "failed hustler turned millionaire," who is intrigued when an old friend from the Outback contacts him after 30 years claiming to have a Van Gogh

In 1900, 30 Australian artists were working in Etaples, a French fishing village west of Paris. Charles Conder, Rupert Bunny, Isobel Rae and John Peter Russell were among these who lived and worked in France.  

The First Sunrise is a companion volume to The Dreamtime and The Dawn of Time; two books which have been one of the greatest publishing successes of recent years. The concept of those two books - and of The First Sunrise - was developed through an...

A crazy kids book - well for all ages - about a Top Hat that can change styles and wherabouts at anytime, with cookie illustrations by the author.

Lowell Tarling interviewed Tiny Tim many times during his numerous visits to Australia. Weird, whacky, this is a great biography of the Worlds most unusual performr, perhaps most famous for his falsetto hit - Tiptoe through the Tulips.

Sydney’s North Shore was – and still largely is - a very special place.  It is a unique subset of Sydney’s wider Australian community…a separate civilisation almost, with it own habits, beliefs, and peculiar ways.  Sandra Darroch (nee Jobson) was born...

"In Crocodile Land" is principally the story of travels by lugger through northern waters and into slimy creeks where the huge crocodiles abound. The author took part in many hunting expeditions and enlightens us on the various methods adopted for...

But in 1931 he was living on his wits as a journeyman journalist and looking for an angle to finish a book about a hyped-up gold prospecting expedition. He found it in sorcery, which he used to infill the gaps between the few facts and fanciful...

Artist Geoff Harvey has won The Gallipoli Prize twice, and the current edition of The Desert Column by Ion Idriess holds last years winning work. This book is a survey of 50 paintings of his Gallipoli sequence, from Enlisting, through Landing, through...