Book Description

A handsome full-colour book pairing unique items from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery with selections of original writing about the southern island. Indigenous dispossession, a cruel penal history, gay-rights battles; exceptional landscapes, unusual wildlife, environmental activism; colonial architecture, arts and crafts, a thriving creative scene—all are part of the story of Tasmania. And they find their expression in the unparalleled collection of Hobart’s TMAG. In Island Story, Ralph Crane and Danielle Wood select almost sixty representative TMAG objects: from shell necklaces to a convict cowl, colonial scrimshaw to a thylacine pincushion, contemporary photography to a film star’s travelling case. Each is matched to texts old and new, by writers as diverse as Anthony Trollope, Marie Bjelke-Petersen, Helene Chung, Jim Everett, Heather Rose and Ben Walter. This is the perfect gift for anyone interested in the island everyone is talking about. Ralph Crane is the author or editor of more than twenty academic books. He lives in Hobart and is Professor of English at the University of Tasmania. Danielle Wood is the author of The Alphabet of Light and Dark, Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls, Mothers Grimm and two non-fiction books on Marjorie Bligh, and co-author of the Angelica Banks series. She lives in Hobart and teaches at the University of Tasmania. ‘While the twenty-four stories in this beautiful anthology range from colonial to contemporary times, they have a common theme—a pervading sense of the landscape.’ Age on Deep South ‘The collection is strong...The editors pull no punches.’ Sun-Herald on Deep South ‘Offers readers a glimpse into the imagery and symbolism that has come to shape how outsiders perceive the island.’ Australian on Deep South