Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland from

Edward John EyreProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
1.4M words
Chapters
144

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Geographical SurveyColonial ExplorationAustralian OutbackSurvival ChallengeWilderness TrekLandscape RecordFrontier LifeArduous TrekExpeditionTravel Log

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.Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia and Overland fromAuthor: Eyre, Edward John, 1815-1901,Language: English, Class: DU: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: History of Oceania (South Seas), Release Date: Mar 1, 2004

Editor's review

This version is likewise a public-domain electronic text of Eyre's expedition journal, with the same core content as other versions of the book; differences lie mainly in release records and file generation information. Its reading value is in providing a directly searchable original narrative: expedition routes, camp life, water seeking, livestock and supply problems, and the author's observations of terrain and peoples along the way are all preserved in continuous diary entries. For researchers, such a text suits quotation checking, timeline construction, and cross-comparison with other sources; for general readers, patience and geographical reference are needed to enter it. It is best not treated as a single authoritative narrative but as historical material requiring annotation and comparison, with attention to recurring survival decisions and environmental pressures, and to the period bias of the author's perspective.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the introduction or preface for the expedition background before entering the diary proper.
  2. Use a table to organize dates, places, events, and supply changes for easy reference.
  3. Compare the geographical descriptions with online historical maps to build a sense of space.
  4. Excerpt passages involving Aboriginal peoples and consult research literature separately for analysis.

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

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FAQ

How does this version differ from other electronic editions of the same book? From the given materials, both are electronic texts of the same work released by Project Gutenberg, with the same author, language, and classification; the main differences are in release records and similar information. The body text should belong to the same work, so no substantial content differences should be expected; treat them as the same text.
Is it suitable as an introductory book on Australian history? Not very suitable for complete beginners. The diary narrative is dense, background information depends on the reader, and modern annotations and an overall framework are lacking. A better approach is to first read an overview of Australian colonial history, then use this book as supplementary primary material, making it easier to understand the expedition's place in history.
How can I use this book for source-analysis practice? Select several consecutive diary entries, examine what facts the author records, what information is omitted, and what wording is used to describe Aboriginal peoples and the environment, then compare with later research to judge his stance and limitations. The point is not to retell content but to identify narrative choices and period context.

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

Edward John Eyre Author · British · 1815–1901

Edward John Eyre (1815–1901) was a British explorer and colonial official. He moved to Australia at the age of seventeen and, in 1840–1841, led an expedition from Adelaide across the Nullarbor Plain to Western Australia, for which he received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He later served as Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand and as Governor of St Vincent and of Jamaica. Eyre wrote Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, and three of his works are held in this collection. Written in diary form, the book records routes, landforms and observations along the way, making it an important primary source for nineteenth-century Australian geographical exploration; its plain, concrete narrative offers both historical value and readable interest.