My Dear, Dear Betsy by Warwick Hirst

My Dear, Dear Betsy

A Treasury of Australian Letters

Compiled by Warwick Hirst

Hale & Iremonger, 1993, [First Edition], ISBN 0868065072, sepia photographs throughout text, sepia frontispiece, paperback

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners’ inscription on half title page (See photographs)

“This book is a celebration of the gentle art of letter-writing.  Arranged chronologically, from 1771 to 1944, each letter has a preamble to set the context. Angry, whimsical, pejorative, amusing, the subject matter of these epistles ranges from eyewitness accounts of colonial life and tales of voyages, cannibalism, and misfortune, to ridicule, comment and urgings to seditions! Through their letters, sometimes to their dearest personal friends, we share the private thoughts of a host of national figures.
Our correspondents include William Bligh, Elizabeth Macarthur, Lachlan Macquarie, and anonymous convict, Ludwig Leichhardt, Rachel Henning, Charles Dickens, Hanry Parkes, Mark Twain, Mary Gilmore, Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, Miles Franklin, Norman Lindsay, Eve Langley and Lloyd Rees.”