General history & topography

In two volumes, Thomas Henry Braim’s History of New South Wales from Its Settlement to the close of the year 1844 gives a comprehensive look at this period of the history of New South Wales.

The first section examines the discovery and early history of the colony during the governments of Captain Phillip, Captain Hunter, Captain King, Captain Bligh, Major-General Macquarie, Sir Thomas Brisbane and Lieutenant-General Darling.

Consisting largely of articles appearing first in journals and then published in 1892 as a complete work, Gilbert Parker gives a glimpse of life and social conditions at the time in Australia.

In the main the material was originally printed in Harpers Weekly, the Sydney Morning Herald, St. James's Gazette, The English Illustrated Magazine, Black and White, and The Illustrated London News.

Written by Mark Kershaw in 1886, this book is both a light-hearted and more serious look at life in Australia and New Zealand.

He covers a wide range of topics - Adventures with a boomerang, A Newcastle legend, The Royal Society of Hulloomaloo, A wonderful bath, A circular story, The smelting works, The rabbit difficulty explained, Dickey Adams, About earthquakes, and more. He also gives a more serious description of the country he visited – North Australia, Queensland, the Darling Downs and New England, Early days in Melbourne, Tasmania, and New Zealand.

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Published posthumously in 1889, this book by Annie Brassey describes her last voyage to India and Australia on the luxury yacht "Sunbeam". The voyage was undertaken to improve her health but, in late 1887 on the way to Mauritius, she died of malaria and was buried at sea.

The book is based on the journal Annie kept and touches on many ports around the world – Bombay, Jubbulpore, Hyderabad, Poona, Goa, Colombo, Rangoon, Labuan, Eleopura, Celebes, Albany, Adelaide, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and Prince of Wales’ Island.