Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land

Reid, Thomas, 1791-1825Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
670K words
Chapters
68

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Human GeographyNature ObservationAdventure JourneyTravel GuideDocumentary NarrativeExotic CultureSocial ObservationCross-Cultural View

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.Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land by Thomas ReidAuthor: Reid, Thomas, 1791-1825,Language: English, Class: HV: Social sciences: Social pathology, Social and Public Welfare, Release Date: Dec 1, 2016

Editor's review

This book is Thomas Reid's first-hand account of two voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania). Classified under social pathology and social welfare in the social sciences, it concerns the convict system and colonial social conditions. Its value lies in firsthand observation: voyage details, colonial life, the situation of convicts, and social order all carry the immediacy of the early nineteenth century. The prose is period English, plain rather than literary, and better suited to use as historical source material. For readers studying Australian colonial history, the convict system, or British overseas governance, it is a usable primary source; general readers can sense the everyday life and harshness of early colonial society. Read it with a critical eye to its historical context, noting the author's standpoint and the limitations of his era.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. First learn the basic background of the convict system and Van Diemen's Land, then begin the main text.
  2. Mark passages concerning social conditions and people's circumstances as you read, for easy reference.
  3. Treat the author's account as historical source material rather than definitive conclusion, and note his standpoint and period biases.
  4. Compare with later works on Australian colonial history to form a retrospective frame of reference.

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

What is this book mainly about? Using two voyages as its thread, the author records the journey to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land and local observations, covering colonial society, the situation of convicts, and daily life. It is a primary record in the nature of a voyage account rather than a systematic history, offering readers firsthand observations of early nineteenth-century colonial life.
What is Van Diemen's Land called today? Van Diemen's Land was the nineteenth-century British name for what is now Tasmania, Australia, then an important penal colony. The observations in the book relate to the early colonization and convict system of this region; understanding this background helps in reading the author's observations and assessments.
Is the original English edition suitable for non-specialist readers? The English carries early nineteenth-century usage, with long sentences and dense narration, so non-specialist readers may find it slow going. Those interested in colonial history or the convict system could use an annotated edition or read background material first; for light reading, it is not well suited.

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About the author

Reid, Thomas, 1791-1825 Author · 1791–1825

Thomas Reid (1791–1825) is an English author of the early nineteenth century about whom very little is publicly known; surviving records give only his dates of birth and death, while his nationality and education are not clearly documented. Only one work is confirmed under his name, Two Voyages to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. Judging from its title and subject, the book belongs to the genre of voyage narrative, recounting journeys to the colony of New South Wales and to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania), with observations of the early settlements and of life at sea, and it partakes of both travel literature and historical memoir. Because public information is limited, his writing style and later influence are difficult to assess in detail; readers may nonetheless use this work to understand how the British of the early nineteenth century observed and described the Australian colonies.