A brilliant account of two hundred years of Tasmanian history and an acclaimed writer's discovery of his secret connection with that island and its past.
Tasmania is famous for its dark past. Prison for convicts; habitat of the now-extinct Tasmanian tiger; and, most wrenching, home to an indigenous population ruthlessly wiped out in the nineteenth century.
European settlement on the island began two hundred years ago. Inspired by tales of Tasmania's exceptional beauty and by its remote location, Nicholas Shakespeare decided to travel there, and soon realised that this was where he wanted to live. Only later did he discover a cache of letters written by an ancestor as corrupt as he was colourful: Anthony Fenn Kemp, the so-called 'Father of Tasmania'. The seeds for this book were sown. On his mother's side too, Shakespeare found he had unknown Tasmanian relations: a pair of elderly sisters who had left their farm only once, in 1943 The spinsters' journal recounted a saga beginning in North Devon in the 1890s with a dashing but profligate ancestor who, having played tennis with the Kaiser, ended his life in disgrace in the Tasmanian bush.
'In Tasmania' is the history of two turbulent centuries in an apparently idyllic place. Against an extraordinary historical backdrop, Shakespeare retrieves a cast of unlikely characters, from Errol Flynn to the 'King of Iceland', a village filled with Chatwins and, inevitably, a family of Shakespeares. But what make this more than a personal quest is Shakespeare's discovery that the Tasmanian Aborigines did not die out.
Contents:
Part 1: Father of Tasmania
Part 2: Black Lines
Part 3: Elysium
Part 4: Oyster Bay
- 1. Daughter of Tasmania
- 2. Tigers and Devils
- 3. Oyster Bay
- 4. Doubles
Acknowledgements
Sources
Illustrations
Index
Review:Shakespeare takes on Van Diemonian history with a breadth and depth of research nothing short of breathtaking - M. Svendsen, The Courier-Mail
A delightful book. Nicholas Shakespeare is a fine story teller and here he unveils for us a compendium of fascinating Tasmanian characters past and present, from bankrupt squires to convict cannibals, from love struck romantics to the captivating monstrous Anthony Fenn Kemp, the Flashman of early colonial Australia. From all these lives Shakespeare builds up a rich and powerful portrait of this intriguing land, his adopted home. - Matthew Kneale
