An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2

King, Philip Gidley, 1758-1808Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
661K words
Chapters
67

Tags

English Originals World History Social ObservationSettler FrontierPioneering JourneyHistorical CriticismGovernance RecordDocumentary NarrativeEighteenth CenturyBritish EmpireColonial HistoryAustralia

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2 by George Bass et al.Author: King, Philip Gidley, 1758-1808,Language: English, Class: DU: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: History of Oceania (South Seas), Release Date: Jun 1, 2004

Editor's review

This is Volume 2 of An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales by Philip Gidley King, a free eBook from Project Gutenberg classified under Oceanian history. It continues the annalistic narrative of Volume 1, recording the administration, military, judicial, and everyday affairs of the early Australian colony from the close-up perspective of a colonial official, and includes voyages and exploration materials left by George Bass and others. Its value lies not in literary style but in the rawness and density of detail of primary sources: readers can see how colonial governance operated, the concrete texture of pioneer life, and what British overseas expansion looked like at the local level. Names, places, and events are arranged chronologically, making it suitable for reference in research or writing. Reading it requires a certain level of English proficiency and historical background; it is best used alongside maps, chronologies, and related historical works, and need not be read from cover to cover but can be sampled by theme or year.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and editor's note first to establish the period covered by Volume 2, then decide which chapters to read closely.
  2. Prepare a map of southeastern Australia and a chronology of colonial events, and cross-reference geography and time as you read.
  3. Take separate notes on administrative records, voyages of exploration, and everyday affairs for later thematic retrieval.
  4. When encountering unfamiliar names and places, make index-style excerpts rather than struggling over every detail page by page

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67

FAQ

Does this book need to be read from cover to cover? No. It records colonial affairs chronologically, with dense information and little narrative drive. A more effective approach is to look at the table of contents first, identify the years or themes that interest you, and then read selectively, skimming or keeping the rest as reference material.
Can I read it without a background in Australian history? You can, but comprehension will be more demanding. The book contains many names, places, and administrative terms without modern annotation. It is advisable to first acquire basic background on the founding of the early Australian colony and to read alongside maps and chronologies; otherwise it is easy to get lost in the details.
What is the edition situation of this book? This is a free electronic edition released by Project Gutenberg, a public-domain historical document in English classified under Oceanian history. It offers the original text rather than a modern scholarly edition, so it has no detailed modern annotations, introduction, or bibliography.

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About the author

King, Philip Gidley, 1758-1808 Author · British · 1758–1808

Philip Gidley King (1758–1808) was a British naval officer who served as Governor of New South Wales and took part in the early colonial governance of Australia. The library holds two of his works, Volume 1 and Volume 2 of An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, which describe the development and administration of the British colony in New South Wales and stand as early colonial records combining a first-hand perspective with an official tone. Public information about the details of his life is limited, and existing accounts mention only his naval career and his post as governor. His writing is grounded in personal experience and administrative records, plain and fact-oriented in style, and is of reference value for the study of early Australian colonial history.