My Dear, Dear Betsy: A Treasury of Australian Letters compiled by Warwick Hirst

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Light foxing to foredges and preliminary pages. Pages have started to sun. Previous owner has written on inside back cover. Book is clean and binding is still very good.

This book is a celebration of the gentle art of letter-writing. Arranged chronologically, from 1771 to 1944, each letter has a preamble to set the context. Angry, whimsical, pejorative, and amusing, the subject matter of these epistles ranges from eyewitness accounts of colonial life and tales of voyages to urges to sedition.

We share the private thoughts of a host of national figures, including William Bligh, Elizabeth Macarthur, Lachlan Macquaries, an anonymous convict, Ludwig Leichhardt, Rachel Henning, Charles Dickens, Henry Parkes, Mark Twain, Mary Gilmore, Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, Miles Franklin, Norman Lindsay, Eve Langley and Lloyd Rees. (back cover)