Independent Publishers Group Logo

Sign up today...
for featured titles, special offers, bestsellers, and more, in your inbox!

Subscribe to receive special offers, monthly books suggestions, seasonal selections, and more!

Close
1788
1788

1788

The Brutal Truth of the First Fleet

HISTORY

392 Pages, 5 x 8

Formats: Trade Paper

Trade Paper, $18.95 (US $18.95) (CA $22.95)

Publication Date: February 2010

ISBN 9781741668001

Rights: US & CA

Penguin Random House Australia (Feb 2010)
William Heinemann Australia

Price: $18.95
 
 

Overview

In 1788, 11 small ships set sail from England on an eight-month-long voyage over the roughest of seas, carrying 1,500 people, food for two years, and all the equipment needed to build a colony of convicts in a land completely beyond their experience and imagination. In Portsmouth, the fleet's preparation was characterized by disease, promiscuity, and death. The journey itself was one of unbearable hardship, but also of extraordinary resilience. Upon their arrival, however, the colonists faced their biggest challenges of all: conflict, starvation, and despair. Combining the skill of a vigilant journalist with the magic of a master novelist, this entrancing history brings the sights, sounds, sufferings, and joys of the “First Fleeters” back to life. Journals, letters, reports, and pleas to England are all interwoven here with the author's own insight, and together they convey the innermost horrors and joys of the very first European Australians. The result is a narrative history that is surprising, compelling, and unforgettable.

Author Biography

David Hill is the author of The Forgotten Children.

If you are interested in distribution with IPG, please view our information for prospective publishers.

More