In 1836,the barque Stirling Castle was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef and the crew and the captain's wife, Mrs Fraser, were cast ashore on the coast of what is now Queensland.Captured by aborigines with cannibalistic tendencies, Captain Fraser and his wife were stripped naked and driven into the bush. Fraser was then murdered and his wife, a lady of genteel upbringing, was tortured and made to perform humiliating tasks as the slave of the tribe. Having given birth in an open boat, her baby was immediately drowned and she was forced instead to mother an aboriginal child 'one of the most deformed and ugly looking brats my eyes ever beheld'.A remarkable rescue by an Irish convict, posing as a 'ghost' of a dead warrior, saved Mrs Fraser whose subsequent misadventures in England provide an intriguing finale to this extraordinary story.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • This incredible true history of the colonization of Australia explores how the convict transportation system created the country we know today. "One of the greatest non-fiction books I’ve ever read ... Hughes brings us an entire world." —Los Angeles Times Digging deep into the dark history of England's infamous efforts to move 160,000 men and women thousands of miles to the other side of the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hughes has crafted a groundbreaking, definitive account of the settling of Australia. Tracing the European presence in Australia from early explorations through the rise and fall of the penal colonies, and featuring 16 pages of illustrations and 3 maps, The Fatal Shore brings to life the history of the country we thought we knew.

One of the most famous shipwreck sagas of the 19th century took place on the tropical coast of north-east Australia. In 1836 the Stirling Castle was wrecked off the Queensland coast and many of the crew, together with the captain's wife, Eliza Fraser, were marooned on Fraser Island. Early sensationalized accounts represent Mrs Fraser as an innocent white victim of colonialism and her Aboriginal captors as barbarous savages. These "first contact" narratives of the white woman and her Aboriginal "captors" impacted significantly on England and the politics of Empire at an early stage in Australia's colonial history. The text critically examines the Eliza Fraser episode by bringing together an interdisciplinary team of authors, artists, members of the Fraser Island Aboriginal community and academics in the areas of cultural and women's studies, literature, history, anthropology, archaeology, the visual and creative arts. This book Essays include feminist analyses of the incident, investigations of textual and visual representations of Aboriginal people, and considerations of the role played by Elisa Fraser as creative inspiration for the arts. The text explores the constructions of Empire, colonialism, identity, femininity, savagery, otherness, captivity and survival.

This book throws fresh light on the history of memory, forgetting and colonialism. It considers key moments of historical imagination, and analyses the strange ensemble of elements that constitute Australian History. It is an innovative and stimulating investigation of historical cultures and narratives.

In this book, colonialism, race, and gender are explored through the cultural representations of an episode of Australian history.

For readers who relish the image of clinging to a sinking makeshift raft while fighting off sword-wielding and delirious mutineers wrenching the last cask of water from a sailor's sun-scorched hands (while sharks circle in famished anticipation), Shipwrecked! Adventures and Disasters at Sea is an irresistible read. A heady voyage through human suffering at the hands of unforgiving oceans, cruel captains, and implacable fate, this latest collection of Evan Balkan's impeccably researched true adventures details 14 major maritime disasters. Included are such legendary stories as the 1629 maiden voyage of the Batavia that ended in mutiny and murder, and the dramatic destruction of the majestic three-masted barquentine Endurance in ice-clogged Antarctic waters in 1912. A vast spectrum of human emotion and activity is featured in these exciting profiles, from deadly incompetence and brutish cannibalism to surprising self-sacrifice and quiet heroism.

Long golden beaches and rocky headlands, high forested dunes, dark waterways and broad lakes - these spectacular features make up the Cooloola Coast. Stretching sixty-five kilometres from Noosa to Fraser Island, it is a remarkable and diverse environment.Cooloola Coastdescribes the area's many-layered history of human occupation in absorbing detail, opening with the story of its Aboriginal occupants, whose kinship with nature was little understood by Europeans. A new and intriguing account tells of the legendary Eliza Fraser and the effects of her experiences on relations between Queensland's Aboriginal and white inhabitants. The final section features the speculators, timber-getters, farmers and fishermen who came seeking opportunities on a new frontier.Illustrated with maps, photographs and drawings, Cooloola Coastis the first comprehensive history of this beautiful and unique environment.