In the 23rd edition of this Imprint Classic, Ion Idriess tells of his beginnings, of his childhood in Lismore, Tamworth and Broken Hill, of his apprenticeship in bushcraft, and of the growing love for the Australian Outback which illumines all his work. He tells of the jobs he had, - as rouseabout, horse breaker, horse tailer, shearer - and of his ......
With the success of The Desert Column in 1932, Idriess wrote this series of mini-biographies on Australia's World War One Flying aces - John Duigan, Harry Cobby, Ross Smith, Oswald Watt, Gordon Taylor, Frank McNamara - our first V.C. aviator, and the post war acrobatics of Macintosh and Paper. Introducing the lot with a background piece on ......
In this book, Ion Idriess reflects on his life prospecting in far North Queensland from 1912 to 1914, and coincided with his earliest writing as “Gouger” for the Bulletin. In Back of Cairns, Jack gives the reader a picture of what life was like when the peninsula jungle was falling under the settler’s axe.
The Desert Column is based on the diaries that Idriess kept throughout the war. Published in 1932, it is one of Idriess' earliest works. Harry Chauvel noted in the foreword that it was the only book of the campaign that to his knowledge was "viewed entirely from the private soldier's point of view..." Idriess served as a sniper with the 5th ......
A thrilling, first-person account of one of the most famous prison escapes of World War II. Jens Mueller was one of only three men who successfully escaped from Stalag Luft III on the night of 24 March 1944 - the breakout that later became the basis for the famous film The Great Escape. This memoir tells how Mueller, a pilot in one of the RAF's ......
The true story of Harold Bell Lasseter's discovery of a massive gold reef in Central Australia, his venture into the interior to find it again using camel, trucks and aeroplane; and his disappearance, lost among Aboriginal tribes in the Central Desert.
The story of survivors of the shipwreck of the Charles Eaton in the Torres Strait in 1834, through the eyes of young John Ireland who befriends the Mer Islanders; and their eventual rescue.
With authenticity that sometimes surprises the reader, Idriess introduces us to Aboriginals from Northern Australia, Papuan head- hunters, and Islanders around the Great Barrier Reef, all still in the colonial phase of European contact. Chinese gold diggers appear too, well before the rise of China. Idriess knew these individuals; he met them, ......
