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The Broad Arrow: Being Passages from the History of Maida Gwynnham, a Lifer by Oliné Keese; Jenna Mead (Editor)
Category: Australiana | Series: Australian Classics Library
Caroline Leakey, writing as Oline Keese, published her first and only novel, The Broad Arrow, in 1859. It tells the story of Maida Gwynnham, a young middle-class woman lured into committing a forgery by her deceitful lover, Captain Norwell, and then wrongly convicted of infanticide. The novel's title de ...Show more
The Coast Watchers by Eric Feldt
Category: No Category | Series: Australian War Classics
After Pearl harbour was bombed in 1941 the war in the Pacific gained momentum; Japanese troops began to move relentlessly south, towards Australia. Determined to provide an information network along the vulnerable coastlines of Northern Australia and the islands to the north, the Australian Navy develop ...Show more
The Devil's Playground by Christos Tsiolkas
Category: Fiction | Series: Australian Screen Classics S.
Fred Schepisi's film, 'The Devil's Playground' is an intimate portrait of Tom, a thirteen-year-old struggling in spirit and body with the constraints of living in a Catholic seminary. It is also the story of the Brothers and how they cope with the demands of their faith. Made in 1976, this semi-autobiog ...Show more
The Getting of Wisdom - Penguin Australian Classics by Henry Handel Richardson
Category: Classics | Series: Penguin Australian Classics
When Laura Rambotham arrives at an exclusive Melbourne girls school from her country home, she is ridiculed by the other pupils for her differences - her name, her unusual clothes and, especially, for her 'unpardonable sin': her exceptional musical ability. Laura endures ostracism and misery as she trie ...Show more
The Harp In The South - Penguin Australian Classics by Ruth Park
Category: Classics | Series: Penguin Australian Classics
Amid the brothels, grog shops and run-down boarding houses of inner-city Surry Hills, money is scarce and life is not easy. Crammed together within the thin walls of Twelve-and-a-Half Plymouth Street are the Darcy family: Mumma, loving and softhearted; Hughie, her drunken husband; pipe-smoking Grandma; ...Show more
The Man from Snowy River by Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson; Annette MacArthur-Onslow (Illustrator)
Category: Picture Books | Series: Australian Children's Classics Ser.
Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson were writing for the Sydney Bulletin' in 1892 when they decided to have a duel of poetry. The idea was to increase the number of poems they could sell to the paper. It began in fun but later became bitter. Paterson wrote many poems and stories about his travels in the Out ...Show more
The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses by Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
Category: Classics | Series: Australian Classics Library
Publisher: Macmillan and co., limited Publication date: 1908 Subjects: History / Australia
The Merry Go Round in the Sea - Penguin Australian Classics by Randolph Stow
Category: Classics | Series: Penguin Australian Classics
In 1941, Rob Coram is six. The war feels far removed from his world of aunties and cousins and the beautiful, dry landscape of Geraldton in Western Australia. But when his favourite, older cousin, Rick, leaves to join the army, the war takes a step closer. When Rick returns from the war several years la ...Show more
The Naked island by Russell Braddon
Category: Military | Series: Australian War Classics Ser.
The innocence of the young Australian soldiers sent to Malaya during the Second World War to halt the territorial expansion of the Japanese was quickly shattered by defeat and surrender. Russell Braddon, who himself became a prisoner of war, graphically describes the ghastly suffering and wanton neglect ...Show more
The Pea Pickers (POD) by Eve Langley
Category: Classics | Series: Australian Classics
In THE PEA PICKERS, a novel based on Eve Langley's own experiences, Steve and Blue are two girls who, dressed as men, are taken on as itinerant workers for the farmers of Gippsland. They pack apples and pick peas. But their disguise is partial - and their quest is for love. For Blue the novel ends in ma ...Show more
The Piano by Gail Jones
Category: No Category | Series: Australian Screen Classics Ser.
The Piano written and directed by Jane Campion, is one of the most honoured films of the new Australian cinema, and is considered, by many critics, a modern masterpiece. Campion won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1993 for the film, making her the first woman ever to win this prestigious award; it also won ...Show more
The Rainbow Serpent by Dick Roughsey
Category: Picture Books | Series: Australian Children's Classics Ser.
A timeless classic from the Dreamtime. there are innumerable names and stories associated with the Rainbow Serpent, all of which communicate the significance of this being within Aboriginal traditions. Dreamtime stories tell how the Rainbow Serpent came from beneath the ground and created huge ridges, m ...Show more