AustLit

'Sex workers in nineteenth-century Melbourne were judged morally corrupt by the respectable world around them. But theirs was a thriving trade, with links to the police and political leaders of the day, and the leading brothels were usually managed by women.

'While today a popular bar and a city lane are famously named after Madame Brussels, the identities of the other ‘flash madams’, the ‘dressed girls’ who worked for them and the hundreds of women who solicited on the streets of the Little Lon district of Melbourne are not remembered.

'Who were they? What did their daily lives look like? What became of them? Drawing on the findings of recent archaeological excavations, rare archival material and family records, historian Barbara Minchinton brings the fascinating world of Little Lon to life.''

Source : publisher's blurb

'Inga Clendinnen was one of Australia’s greatest writers and thinkers. This selection covers the full scope of her writing, from Tiger’s Eye to Aztecs, from Boyer Lectures to essays on all manner of topics. The rich array is introduced by acclaimed historian James Boyce, who traces Clendinnen’s life and evolving thought. 

'Boyce writes that Clendinnen’s ‘ability to write serious history for a general readership was unrivalled in this country … Her writings are an enduring testament to the truth that while we might “live within the narrow moving band of time we call the present … the secret engine of our present is our past, with its plastic memories, its malleable moralities, its wreathing dreams of desirable futures”.’ ' (Publication summary)

'George Seddon, one of Australia’s most revered environmental scholars, was renowned for championing ‘a sense of place’. He was a connoisseur of landscapes – from the rugged Snowy River Mountains to the humble domestic backyard – who explored the contested relationship between metropolitan suburbs, agricultural hinterlands and wilderness areas, and the dynamics of everything from resource extraction to tending our own gardens. He sought to radically rethink our relationship with nature.

'Seddon’s work anticipated the new fields of urban planning, landscape architecture, environmental conservation, but he was also an irrepressible polymath. A professor in four distinct disciplines – English, geology, the history and philosophy of science, and environmental sciences – he also carved out a career in community, regional and government consultation, wrote practical guides to gardening, heritage walks and house restoration, and the first Australian suburban history.

'Collected here are highlights of Seddon’s groundbreaking writing, selected and edited by Andrea Gaynor, a leading scholar of environmental history, and with a lively introduction from renowned historian Tom Griffiths.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'During the nineteenth century many European settlers, government officials and missionaries documented their obervations of the Indigenous people's of Victoria they were displacing. This selection of over 700 extracts from a wide variety of these sources provide glimpses into a rich and complex world. This reader is a convenient entry point into this disparate literature and will be of use to anyone with an interest in Victorian ethnography and history and of particular value to teachers, students and Aboriginal communities.' (Source: TROVE)

'One of Australia’s leading thinkers for close to fifty years, Donald Horne was probably the best Australian non-fiction writer of his generation.

'This definitive collection of Horne’s writing, thoughtfully selected by his son, Nick, tells the story of his life and intellectual development. From a position of doubting whether change was possible, he eventually became a proponent of the sensible reform necessary for Australia to prosper in a changing world.

'Horne made the case for a more open, modern, intelligent Australia, most famously in his seminal book The Lucky Country. Selections from this work sit alongside pithy reflections on Australian history and culture, as well as vivid autobiographical writing.

'With an introduction by Nick Horne and a biographical essay by Glyn Davis , this important book honours and illuminates the man who helped the nation understand itself.' (Publication summary)

'An award-winning biography of one of the greats.

'Simon Leys is the pen-name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University and was Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993. He died in 2014.

'Writing in three languages – French, Chinese and English – he played an important political role in revealing the true nature of the Cultural Revolution. His writing on China and on varied literary and cultural topics appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro Littéraire, Quadrant and the Monthly, and his books include The Hall of Uselessness, The Death of Napoleon, Other People’s Thoughts and The Wreck of the Batavia & Prosper. In 1996 he delivered the ABC’s Boyer Lectures. His many awards include the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca, the Prix Guizot and the Christina Stead Prize for fiction.

'This substantial biography – recently published by Gallimard in France to wide acclaim and winning an award from the Académie Francaise – draws on extensive correspondence with Ryckmans, as well as his unpublished writings. It has been translated by an internationally renowned French translator Julie Rose (based in Sydney).' (Publication summary)