Dan Sprod
Van Diemen's Land Revealed -
Flinders and Bass and their Circumnavigation of the Island in the Colonial Sloop Norfolk 1798-1799
270 x 180mm, x, 256pp, frontis portraits, 12pp b&w illustrations, 3 charts folded in pocket at end. Case-bound with dust jacket. 750 copies only.
Book of the Month March 2010
Australian: $77 (Approx. US $69, Euro €53)
750 Copies only
ISBN 9780908528356
About the Book
Matthew Flinders and George Bass have been given considerable recognition in publications relating to their lives and achievements. One major exploit - their successful circumnavigation of Van Diemen's Land in 1798 and 1799 in the sloop Norfolk, which established beyond doubt the existence of Bass Strait and that Van Diemen's Land was an island - has been overlooked to the extent that no separate work brings together source materials relating to the voyage. Van Diemen's Land Revealed, compiled to correct the deficiency, presents original accounts written by the two adventurers, together with commentary, notes and references, a bibliography and index. The account includes the earlier voyages by Bass from Sydney Cove to Western Port (in Tom Thumb I & II and in a whaleboat) and of Flinders to the wreck of the Sydney Cove. A facsimile of Flinders' most rare pamphlet Observations on the Coasts of Van Diemen's Land, on Bass's Strait and its Islands, and on part of the Coasts of New South Wales, published in London in 1801, and the three important charts which were intended to accompany to it, are also reproduced.
About the Author
Dan Sprod, OAM, was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in March 1924. After service in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II, he was a professional librarian with the National Library of Australia (1951 - 1966) and Librarian of the University of Tasmania (1966 - 1975). He founded Blubber Head Press in 1978, being its publisher until 2000. Dan Sprod is author of Victorian and Edwardian Hobart from Old Photographs (1977); Alexander Pearce ofMacquarie Harbour: Convict, Bushranger, Cannibal (1977); The Tregurtha Log: relating the Adventurous Life of Edward Primrose Tregurtha (1980) and The Usurper: forgen forgenson and his Turbulent Life in Iceland and Van Diemen's Land 1780 - 1841 (2001). His interest in Australian land exploration led to his two books on Ludwig Leichhardt; Proud Intrepid Heart: Leichhardt's First Attempt to the Swan River, 1846- 1847 (1989) and Leichhardt's Expeditioners: In the Australian Wilderness 1844- 1845 (2006).