| Author: | Marcus Clarke | ISBN: | 1230000148592 |
| Publisher: | WDS Publishing | Publication: | July 6, 2013 |
| Imprint: | Language: | English |
| Author: | Marcus Clarke |
| ISBN: | 1230000148592 |
| Publisher: | WDS Publishing |
| Publication: | July 6, 2013 |
| Imprint: | |
| Language: | English |
The narratives which follow have, with one exception, already been
published in the Australasian weekly newspaper.
They were dug out by me at odd times during a period of three years,
from the store of pamphlets, books, and records of old times, which is
in the Public Library; and in their narration, I lay claim but to such
originality as belongs to the compiler. The fact, that, being in a
measure themselves records of bye-gone days, they have tickled the
memories of old colonists, and so attracted an attention altogether out
of proportion to their literary merits, is my reason for publishing them
in a collected form.
I have done my best to secure accuracy in names, dates, and minute
particulars; but the meagreness of the early colonial newspapers, the
wanton destruction or mutilation of many of the early colonial official
documents, the jealousy with which colonial families guard the secret
histories bequeathed to them by their ancestors, and the fact that the
rude, adventurous life of those early colonial days prevented the
registration of the very romances which it induced, render it difficult
to obtain correlative evidence of many statements quoted, and have
compelled me in some few instances to accept the narrative as correct on
the sole authority of the first and only narrator.
I shall therefore be glad to receive any corrections or suggestions from
persons whom accident has furnished with fuller information than I
possess, on the subjects treated of in the following pages. MARCUS
CLARKE. The Public Library, Museums, &c., Melbourne, 30th November,
1871.
The narratives which follow have, with one exception, already been
published in the Australasian weekly newspaper.
They were dug out by me at odd times during a period of three years,
from the store of pamphlets, books, and records of old times, which is
in the Public Library; and in their narration, I lay claim but to such
originality as belongs to the compiler. The fact, that, being in a
measure themselves records of bye-gone days, they have tickled the
memories of old colonists, and so attracted an attention altogether out
of proportion to their literary merits, is my reason for publishing them
in a collected form.
I have done my best to secure accuracy in names, dates, and minute
particulars; but the meagreness of the early colonial newspapers, the
wanton destruction or mutilation of many of the early colonial official
documents, the jealousy with which colonial families guard the secret
histories bequeathed to them by their ancestors, and the fact that the
rude, adventurous life of those early colonial days prevented the
registration of the very romances which it induced, render it difficult
to obtain correlative evidence of many statements quoted, and have
compelled me in some few instances to accept the narrative as correct on
the sole authority of the first and only narrator.
I shall therefore be glad to receive any corrections or suggestions from
persons whom accident has furnished with fuller information than I
possess, on the subjects treated of in the following pages. MARCUS
CLARKE. The Public Library, Museums, &c., Melbourne, 30th November,
1871.
