Louisa Anne Meredith's account of her life in Tasmania was published in 1852. She was an experienced traveller, and this work is remarkable for being the first detailed account by a woman of life in the colony. Its shrewd observations and descriptive personal narrative make it an engaging read, as well as providing a valuable historical record. A keen botanist and artist, Meredith describes the island's natural life in great detail in beautiful and evocative passages. In Volume 2 she provides more anecdotes of her life, including descriptions of the animals she encounters and journeys made within the island. She also covers more social issues, looking at religion and custom in the colony among the settlers and the natives, and closing the book with an examination of Tasmania's industry and trades. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=merelo.

This is a narrative about three Gray families and their new lives in their chosen home of Van Diemen's Land in the late 1830s and the reasons which propelled each one into such a momentous change. However, their family journey originated centuries before in Ireland during the tumultuous English Civil War when their ancestor Lt Colonel John Grey stepped ashore at Ringsend, Dublin as part of Cromwell's Army on the 15th August 1649. Their story embraces just about all of our human emotions, through the quest for a better life, not only for themselves but for their children and future generations. In essence, like most emigrants, this was their primary motivation although compelling events such as war, economic and social challenges beyond the individual were also at play. The Greys were no different from thousands of other families who chose to travel to Australia and by exploring their lives, experiences and destinies we can learn just a little more about life in early colonial Tasmania.

A history still in the making -- Australian women writers through their letters, diaries and fictions have created a new world of literature. Dale Spender in this lively and provocative history of white women's literature presents a fresh and forthright view of the achievements of convict writers to writers and feminists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Despite the increased visibility of Victorian women artists in museum exhibitions and historical studies, the art produced by Victorian women has been viewed through a restrictive lens. Scholars have focused on works produced for the marketplace, but have overlooked art created and displayed outside of established venues and institutions of higher learning. Drawing upon sketches, paintings, and photographs, Intrepid Women: Victorian Artists Travel is a groundbreaking study that examines the art that women produced whilst traveling, as well as the circumstances that took these artists - both amateurs and professionals - far beyond the reaches of the traditional Grand Tour. Traveling throughout the British Empire, including the Middle East, India, Canada, and North Africa, and even to the Americas, the artists adapted to new climes and foreign cultures partially by documenting the unfamiliar through their art, sometimes at great physical risk. This volume of essays offers fresh evidence that through their travel and art, women extended both geographic and social boundaries. Each author presents evidence that women overcame institutional as well as cultural obstacles to improve their artistic skills and to use their art to convey worlds most British citizens would never see for themselves.