An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island

Hunter, John, 1738-1821Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
1M words
Chapters
101

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalAdventure JourneyGeography ScienceDocumentary NarrativeSea JournalExotic CultureSocial ObservationColonial SettlementEthnographic ObservationAustralian Landscape

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 Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk IslandAuthor: Hunter, John, 1738-1821,Language: English, Class: DU: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: History of Oceania (South Seas), Release Date: Apr 20, 2005

Editor's review

This book is John Hunter's historical journal of colonial activities at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, a primary source for early Australian colonial history. Its value lies not in narrative fluency but in the concreteness and immediacy of its records: details of administrative affairs, provisions, personnel movements, and island management allow readers to directly touch the daily operations of late eighteenth-century South Pacific colonial settlements. As a Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book, it is convenient for searching and citation, suitable as supplementary material for historical research or selected reading of primary sources. Readers are advised to treat it as historical material rather than popular history, attending to the journal's format, chronological threads, and the author's perspective, and to use maps and background materials to understand place names and personal relationships. Readers interested in Australian history, colonial history, and voyages and Pacific studies can gain details here that secondary works can hardly replace.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. First read the table of contents and editor's introduction to establish the timeline and personal relationships, then enter selected main text.
  2. Read alongside a map of early Australian colonial history, marking place names and voyage routes as you go.
  3. Excerpt content by theme—administration, provisions, personnel management—for later research citation.
  4. If reading only for background, prioritize journal passages from key years rather than reading every 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
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100
  101. 101

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a historical source? It is a historical journal written by John Hunter, a primary source in journal form recording colonial affairs at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, not a novel or popular historical narrative. It should be treated as historical material, with attention to record dates, the author's standpoint, and the scope of coverage.
Can I read this book if my English is not good? This is a public-domain English e-book. The journal-style sentences are relatively direct, but it involves many place names, personal names, and eighteenth-century usages. Readers with weaker English will find it burdensome; it is advisable to build background knowledge first or read it alongside relevant Chinese scholarly works.
Which part should I start with? It is advisable to first look at the table of contents and opening introduction to understand the time span and main locations covered, then select chapters related to Norfolk Island management or early construction at Port Jackson. For research purposes, one may skip by theme and take excerpts.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Hunter, John, 1738-1821 Author

John Hunter (1738–1821) was a British naval officer and early colonial official who sailed to Australia with the First Fleet and held important posts in New South Wales. The library holds one work by him, An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island. Written from a first-hand perspective, the book records the affairs of the early settlement at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, combining the character of a nautical journal with observations of colonial life. It is of value as a source for understanding British colonial activity in southeastern Australia at the end of the eighteenth century. Public information is limited, and details of his life and classification cannot be reliably established; the focus therefore rests on the significance of this work as a primary record of early colonization.