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Notes
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Some of the essays in Australian Sketches were originally published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine and in other British periodicals.
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A notice advertising a second edition of Australian Sketches, by subscription, appears in the Geelong Advertiser and Squatters' Advocate on 15 July 1846, p.3. The anticipated price for the new edition was expected to be twelve shillings and sixpence. (The advertisement was repeated for several successive weeks.)
Affiliation Notes
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Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing
Thomas McCombie (1819-1869) Esq., was a journalist, merchant and politician. His second series of sketches of Australian life, McCombie published Australian Sketches in 1861. The first series, published 16 years earlier, delineated the different types of colonists in Australia. The second series was an attempt to write about different periods and stages of development of the colony of Victoria during the time that McCombie was in Melbourne. McCombie’s life in colonial society was extensive: he was editor and part proprietor of the Port Phillip Gazette from 1844-1851, and representative for Bourke Ward, Melbourne Town Council, from 1846-1851. In his prefatory advertisement, McCombie stated that he hoped the sketches proved interesting to British readers, and that some of his pieces had already been favourably received in British magazines. The work focused primarily on gold digging areas, convicts, squatters, diggers, Aboriginal populations, and travelling around the Horn. It was written in the first person, with a descriptive and conversational tone.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Untitled
1847
single work
review
— Appears in: The Atlas , 3 July vol. 3 no. 136 1847; (p. 321)
— Review of Australian Sketches 1845 selected work essay
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Untitled
1847
single work
review
— Appears in: The Atlas , 3 July vol. 3 no. 136 1847; (p. 321)
— Review of Australian Sketches 1845 selected work essay