Colonial Ladies compiled and edited by Maggie Weidenhofer

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Previous owner has used an embossed stamp on preliminary pages. Dust jacket has light creasing at edges and spine. Dust jacket is now enclosed in protective covering. Interior and binding are also very good.

The colonial ladies faced an uncertain and often lonely life in a scarcely known land far from England. This harsh young country demanded strength and independence: governors’ wives played a central role in the official establishment of the colonials; wives of pioneering squatters brought grace and beauty to homesteads while enduring isolation and hardship; artists and commentators recorded their new land from the perspective of women more accustomed to drawing rooms than droughts and humble workers provided a backbone of support in both town and country. Most had the advantage of education and penned their thoughts in diaries and letters, while some of convict origin struggled with the language.

Throughout the varied experiences presented in this selection a thread of longing for home and dear familiar faces is entwined with the unspoken courage and determination faced by the new settler.

The extracts in Colonial Ladies are freshly told anecdotes about people, places and events. Lively, amusing, poignant or grim, they are a fascinating glimpse of distant lives, supported by biographical introductions by Maggie Weidenhofer. (book flap)