Out Of The Shadow: The Career of John Pascoe Fawkner by Hugh Anderson (Secondhand Book)

SECONDHAND BOOK

Little Johnny Fawkner may not have been a very pleasant character, but the triumphs over his heredity and early career, and his successful struggles with British autocracy, convictism, the Pentonvillians, corruption, and a monopolistic squattocracy made his career of considerable importance, apart from the fact that he ranks with Batman as the founder of Melbourne.

For a man who came first to Westernport and then to Hobart with a convict father, and who was himself imprisoned and brutally flogged for aiding convicts to build a vessel in an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the hell of early Van Diemen’s Land, his rehabilitation and later career were little short of miraculous.

When he died in 1869, Parliament adjourned, public offices were closed by government proclamation, flags flew half mast, church bells tolled at minute intervals, all Melbourne shops presented drawn blinds and shutters and fifty thousand people lined the streets as the cortege moved off… 228 carriages, from the Governor’s to hansom cabs, spread over two miles and carrying every variety of official, public and religious dignitary. Fawkner’s standing in public esteem may have been due to the fact that behind all the froth, venom and almost violent aggressiveness lay worthy motives and a freedom from immorality and corruption unusual in those times.

Hugh Anderson has used an immense amount of new and original material to produce a compelling narrative, which, as it naturally reproduces Fawkner’s opinion, should arouse further critical work.

Specifications:

Condition: Acceptable – plastic wrapped, dustjacket beneath quite damaged but intact, inscribed with former owner’s name, yellowing to pages.

Publisher: F.W. Cheshire

Year: 1962

Format: Hardback, with dustjacket

Pages: 237pp

ISBN: N/A

$25.00

1 in stock