SUP Classics – serie

A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53 is an account of Clacy's visit with her brother to the Victorian goldfields. It combines detailed description with features of real dramatic interest and gives a lively impression of the times.

Martin's novels include An Australian Girl (1890) and The Silent Sea (1892). The Incredible Journey, her last novel, published in 1923, is the story of two aboriginal women through desert country to retrieve a little boy kidnapped by a white man. Catherine Edith Macauley Martin (1847-1937) was born in Scotland and arrived with her family in Adelaide in 1855. From around 1868 she published poetry and verse translations in newspapers. In 1874 she published her first collection in The Explorers and Other Poems.

Such is Life is Furphy's great novel first published in 1903, and signalled the end of the "colonial romance" by its realistic portrayal of Australian rural life. Joseph Furphy (1843-1912) was born in Victoria and worked on farms, in the gold diggings and carting goods in the Riverina with a bullock team before taking employment in Shepparton where he was able to study and write.At his death in 1912 in Western Australia he was still largely unknown. A small group of admirers, including retired teacher Kate Baker, devoted themselves to promoting his work and by the 1940's he was recognised as one of the most significant Australian writers prior to World War I.

The Eureka Stockade is Carboni's eccentric yet shrewd account of the events leading up to and beyond the miners' revolt on the Victorian goldfields in 1854. Raffaello Carboni (1817-1875) was born in Urbino, Italy. He arrived at the Victorian goldfields in 1853 and witnessed the attack on the Eureka Stockade in 1854 as a member of the miners central committee. He eventually returned to Italy to participate in the Risorgimento.

Published when Lower was only 27, Here's Luck was described as 'Australia's funniest book'.

Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains in New South Wales in the Year 1813 was first published in 1823. It is a romantic and descriptive narrative of the journey to find a path across the Blue Mountains and received a great reception both in England and in Australia.

Spinifex and Sand is Carnegie's celebrated journal of exploration following several years' expeditions through the most inhospitable regions of the continent. David W. Carnegie (1871-1900), was the son of the Earl of Suffolk, and trained as an engineer. He travelled to Coolgardie when gold was discovered in Western Australia in 1892. He subsequently prospected and explored large areas of desert Western Australia.

Quong Tart (Mei Guangda, 1850-1903) was born in Guangdong province and migrated with his uncle to Australia in 1859. After working on the goldfields he established a tea trading business and opened a chain of tea rooms in Sydney. He became the leading merchant and trader with China in 19th century Australia, and also a local community leader and philanthropist with established connections with political and social elites. He was a well-known and respected figure despite anti-Chinese attitudes and there was widespread shock when he was attacked and robbed in his Queen Victoria Building rooms. In 1886 Quong Tart married Margaret Scarlett who compiled, edited and composed the biographical account of his life in The Life of Quong Tart originally published in 1911.