Hesperian Press

PLEASE NOTE: Any book title starting with "The" - the second word of the title is used to list by.

   All prices quoted are in Australian currency and include GST. * Short trade discount.

   If you are unsure of a title use the search facility on the left hand side of this page.

Price Changes
 

Early Woodline  $40*

Lake wood $50*

Brideships $40.00*

Wreck of the Barque Stefano   price is now $26

Murder on the Rabbit Proof Fence  Price $26. New edition 2021. ISBN 978-0-85905-857-5

FREE BOOKS

When you visit the shop you can choose from the 'free book shelf'. Mail order - we will try to add in a free book if it does not increase the postage.

It is important that we get support for our books from our readers. Hesperian does not get taxpayer funding.

Many millions of dollars have been mis-spent on unreadable novels and plainly irrelevant and obnoxious propaganda.

There is no other publisher like us in Australia concentrating on REAL Australian history and people.

Hesperian books will stand the test of time.

But if we do not get buyer support we may not be around too long after our 50 years anniversary.  

Obituary

Alex Palmer

(1927 -2021)
 

Alex Palmer was a prolific researcher and writer of books on goldfields history. In his work he was always supported and accompanied by his wife Elizabeth, who predeceased him by exactly six weeks.

I had known Alex for some decades and our conversations were mainly around our mutual interest in the history of the goldfields. His writing took place after his retirement and their hobby for many years was lapidary and rock hunting.

It was not until I had to winkle some background out of him as I was quietly proposing him for an Order of Australia that I realised how little I knew. Unfortunately dealing with Canberra is fraught with peril and illogical decisions. A problem that I faced, was, that Alex being an independent researcher over many years, meant that finding old associates to support the submission was difficult as he had outlived most of those that he had dealt with. But, as with our growing realisation that taking the ‘king’s shilling’ is the way to ruin, we must be prepared to raise our own cultural heroes from within us and treat the diktats of the politicians and bureaucrats as the poisoned bait that they are. Through his books Alex will live on forever in Western Australian history.

Alex was born at Mt Barker and educated at CBC Fremantle and St Louis College Claremont and graduated from the UWA in “beer and billiards”. He roamed the Pilbara prospecting for some time, cut sugarcane at Cairns for a season, and returned home to work six years in the hardware and glass trade. It was during this time he married Beth Secombe. They had two children and then their world collapsed, he was unemployed. Three years on and with two further children, he studied and worked part time, days and nights, with the unwavering support of his wife, graduating with a degree in chemistry in 1962.

He undertook radio work for NASA at Muchea around 1960. The next 25 years were in the employ of the SEC. Whilst at Muja Power Station near Collie he found great joy in examining the fossils of the Galatea coal seam, finding and adapting new water sources for the Station and finding garnet crystals the size of lawn bowls being used locally as door stops which rekindled his interest in nature.

Alex and Beth joined the WA Lapidary Club in 1967 and the field trips created an interest in the history of those places. Nine books were the result from 1981 to 2012. All of these are available from Hesperian Press.

We very much miss the visits of Alex and Beth, and Sang Hee always sighed over their leaving as they walked hand in hand down our pathway.

Albany Resident Magistrates. 1850-1855.

by Dianne and Ashton Cavanagh.

ISBN 978-0-85905-892-6. (New, 2021), A4, 71 pages, indexed, 270 grams, $45.00*

The letterbook of John Randall Phillips and associates was lost to WA when taken back to Ireland. Now the full text is transcribed, edited, and indexed.

This is a valuable source of information on the early colonists and the local aborigines.

Black Swans Over Java
 

by Ian Duggan.
 

ISBN 978-0-85905-898-8, (New, 2021), A4, 139 pages, heavily illustrated, French flaps, 430grams, $40.00*

The story of the Corunna WWII secret air base south of Marble Bar Western Australia, the men that worked there under unbearable conditions to provide fuel, and armaments to American and Australian B.24 Liberator bombers, and the heroic flight crews that flew missions bombing Japanese bases in Java and Bali.

Cannibals, Constables, and Courts. Pilbara-Murchison 1887-1896.

by Peter J. Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-865-0, (New, 2021), A4, 70 pages, indexed, 220 grams, $30.00*

An in-depth look into an oft debated subject using a wide range of publicly available records held by the State Library of Western Australia. Compiled predominantly over the space of a number of weekends by a dedicated researcher together with uncondoned introductory remarks penned solely by the manager of the publishing company. The two have deliberately chosen to refrain from commenting on the accuracy or otherwise of the information presented, particularly with regard to the statements obtained by the accused as well as the witnesses in each of the three events detailed, leaving the reader to judge for him or herself as to whether any one of the these incidents actually transpired, and the reasons as to why. 

The underlying aim in producing a study of this nature was not in any way intended to re-ignite any form of debate with respect to such a controversial subject but rather to demonstrate how one could and should be prepared to explore as wide a number of resources as possible to paint an untarnished image in order to unravel the mysteries of our little known and much neglected past as distinct from a reliance on too fewer sources in order to produce a skewed account of history for politically correct motives and academic leaning. 

Both the compiler and the publisher trust that that the reader will not in any way be offended by the nature of the verbatum transcripts or our choice of subject, inspired in part by a number of entries within in the official and private diaries of Sergeant H. C. Ord, who was privy to one of the incidents described, but instead be inspired to follow the journey we have embarked upon in like manner and with similar dedication.    

Cocklebiddy.

Jill McDonald.

ISBN 978-0-85905-904-6, (2021), A4, 32 pages, heavily illustrated, 130 grams, $22.00*

The story of the founding of Cocklebiddy roadhouse on the Nullarbor Plain and the earlier Kimberley station and circus sideshow life.

Commandant of Solitude. The Journals of Captain Collet Barker 1828-1831.

Edited by John Mulvaney & Neville Green.

ISBN 978-0-85905-893-3, (1992, R 2021), 240 x 170,   illustrated- colour plates, Section sewn, French flap soft cover, 466 pages, 1.2kg, $80.00*

After seeing service in the Peninsular War, Canada and Ireland, Captain Collet Barker (1784-1831) was posted to New South Wales, but he spent less than a month in the relative comfort of Sydney Town. He was sent to command the isolated settlement at Raffles Bay (near modern Darwin) for just over a year and was then transferred to King George Sound (Albany), both tiny military detachments on the furthest frontiers of empire.

Prehistorian D. J. Mulvaney and historian Dr Neville Green with E.W.F. (Ted) Street laboriously transcribed Barker's journals, revealing the texture of life in the frontier settlements. 

The combined Raffles Bay and King George Sound manuscripts were 586 folio pages of almost indecipherable script. The Raffles Bay folio was deciphered by E.W.F. Street and similarly the 250 King George Sound (Albany) pages by Dr Green that engaged him for 12 years.

Here is Barker's account of his day-to-day problems in the most remote settlements in the continent. He had to deal with difficult officials, unruly soldiers and escaping convicts. He had to try to meet the inflexible demands of the Colonial Office, and at the same time struggle to raise crops and animals in unfamiliar soil and climate. He took an enlightened interest in the Aborigines, who were familiar with European visitors and his journals provide a unique account of the friendly relationships that he achieved with them. 

Barker emerges as an excellent administrator, kind-hearted, zealous and firm. His untimely death is movingly recounted in Chapter 1. As solitary in his death as in his Australian commands, Barker at some time penned a sadly percipient epitaph consisting of the first lines of Alexander Pope's Ode on Solitude. The last stanza of this ode reads:

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me dye;

Steal from the world and not a stone

Tell where I lye.

On 30^th April 1831 Barker was fatally speared in South Australia.

This book details the early years of the military settlements at Raffles Bay and Albany. It is essential for the understanding of both colonial outposts. The publishers gt gt g/father, William Thacker, was present at Albany, courtesy of HMG.

Experiences & adventures in Western Australia. Nathaniel William Cooke. 

Edited by Peter J. Bridge, Annelle Perotti and Gail Dreezens.

ISBN 978-0-85905-749-3, (2021), A4, French flaps, Illustrated, indexed, 275 pages, **grams, $75.00*

The Reminiscences and Diaries of explorer Nathaniel Cooke (1838 – 1922) with those of his son, Lewin. They cover decades of NW exploration and mining. An important source for early NW history.

Discoverer of Nullagine, Marble Bar, Roy Hill Station, Ethel Creek, and other NW places.

Published under the aegis of the Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project as an ancillary volume. 

He Rode Alone 

by Joan Brockman.

ISBN 978-0-85905-889-6, (1987, R, 2021), 160 x 240, Illustrated, French flap soft cover, 298 pages, 510 grams, $55.00*

A book which, for human interest and historical importance, towers above anything which has or ever will be written about the North West of Western Australia. Though factual it reads more like the fictional story of an extraordinary and in some ways tragic man. 

For thirty and more years until 1912 Julius Brockman recorded in his diary, almost daily, the events consistent with adventurous exploration and settlement of a harsh environment. Others have kept similar, though perhaps not such lengthy or meticulous records, but it is the man’s unusually descriptive writing and biting wit which makes such entertaining reading. And unlike many pioneers he did not become so immersed in his battle with nature as to lose interest in the outside world. His comments on the politics of the day and the section on his overseas travels add another dimension to the overall theme of pioneer existence. 

To extract the essential facts from such a mammoth collection of data and present them in such a manner as to form an ongoing story and a finely drawn picture of the diarist required brilliant editing. Joan Brockman must be congratulated on the result – a most valuable and enjoyable book. 

Available direct from Vernon Brockman, Beachgrove, Busselton and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

History of the North West of Australia, Battye & Fox. Index.

Michael Lance, Gail Dreezens, Peter J Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-906-0, (2021), A5, 34 pages, 60 grams, $10.00*

The Hyland Circus.

by Peter J. Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-900-8, (New, 2021), A4, 52 pages, heavily illustrated,  175 grams, $30.00*

Hyland's Circus was renowned across Australia. Horseman John Roberts married a daughter of Ah Pan and an Irish girl from Capetown, N Queensland.

The many children were trained as horseriders and circus performers. Some became renowned internationally.

Arriving in WA at the turn of the century they performed state-wide. An attraction was that many of the performers were blind from an inherited optical neuropathy passed on maternally.

Settling in Broome, Roberts disappeared on a horse trading trip up the Fitzroy River. Several years later his body was found with a bullet hole in the head.

The reason for his death was a mystery, known to very few, all now dead. All the police files have been destroyed.

Now for the first time in over a century the secret of his death is revealed.

Leeman’s Rescue from the Great South Land 1658

by Paul Cozynsen.

ISBN 978-0-85905-896-4, (New 2021), A4, illustrated, 87 pages, 420 grams, $40.00*

The Governor-general and his councillors in Batavia resolved to send the fluit Waeckende Boey and the galjoort Emeloordt, in search of survivors from Vergulde Draeck and the lost eleven crew of Goede Hoop. Captains Samuel Volkersen and Aucke Peieters Jonck, with crews of forty and twenty-five respectively left Batavia on News Years Day, 1658. Leeman had been appointed uppersteersman of Waeckende Boey. The company's orders to Volkersen made it quite clear that the officials were as concerned about obtaining as much information as possible on the South land as that survivors be found and brought back. He was to give special attention to navigation hazards along the coast. He was also to find out all he could about the mainland and its inhabited. Finally, he was ordered to take formal possession of all places, lands and islands.

He was reminded in no uncertain terms, that the company had invested heavily in the expedition and it wanted a careful record kept of all his actions and discoveries in order to obtain due and perfect knowledge of the situation and natural features of this region.

Available direct from the author. Paul Cozynsen 15 Kingsbridge Road, Warnbro, 6169 Cell# 0448653560.

‘Mad Jack’. The murder of Paul Conde at Yampi Sound and the Lost Silver Mine of Hadji Ibrahim.

Peter J. Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-902-2, (New, 2021), A4, illustrated, 55 pages, 180 grams, $30.00*

The companion volume to Yampi Frontier. Murder and mayhem on the Kimberley coast and the search for the lost silver mine. Beachcombers and pastoralists were viciously murdered by the savage tribesmen and the best of the bush police tracked the killers in untrodden country to bring them to justice.

Memoirs

by J. Jobst.

ISBN 978-0-85905-891-9. (New, 2021), A4, French flap soft cover, illustrated, 102 pages, 400 grams, $40.00*

John Jobst was the Catholic Bishop of the Kimberley. We published his memoirs privately in 2000 as an edition of 40. John died in 2014.

His memoirs, both of his experiences in the Kimberley, and especially in his life on the Eastern Front and as a prisoner in the ‘American’ death camp on the Rhine, are valuable reading.

Murder and Mayhem on the Nullagine. The joys of multiculturalism.

by Peter J. Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-897-1, (New, 2021), A4, 38 pages, indexed, 150 grams, $22.00*

Nullagine probably has had more murders per head of population than any other place in Western Australia. The latest openly recorded being that of ‘Old Otto’ in 1983.

Nullagine, the blistering god-forsaken outpost of a sun-blasted Empire. From its primeval days as the kingdom of the cannibals where untold generations of piccaninnies were immolated for the indigenous epicures, to the gold and diamond rushes that introduced a bit of colour into the mix, raising tempers, and laying a solid foundation for the joys of multiculturalism, Nullagine is celebrated for its blood curdling hotel and the highest ratio of murders per head of population in Australia. 

There are no doubt a few more forgotten bodies buried in the outliers of Nullagine such as Mosquito Creek, 20 Mile Sandy Creek, Shark Creek and Skull Springs, but this small collation will serve to give the flavour of the local culture.

Nor’West of West. James Thomson. Index.

By Peter J. Bridge & Gail Dreezens.

ISBN 978-0-85905-903-9, (2021), A5, 9 pages, 25 grams, $10.00*

Notes of Savage Life in the Early Days of West Australian Settlement.

Walter E. Roth – the reminiscences of Robert Austin Surveyor.

ISBN 978-085905-909-1, (1902, R, 2021), A4, 23 pages, illustrated, 95 grams, $22.00*

On the natives of the SW of WA.

On the Natives of Central and Western Australia

by John Forrest.

ISBN 978-0-85905-901-5, (1876, R, 2021), A5, 8 pages, 30 grams, $10.00*

On the Swan.

A History of the Swan District, Western Australia

by Michael J. Bourke.

ISBN 978-0-85905-893-3. (1987,R, 2021), 180 x 245, French flaps, Section sewn, heavily illustrated B&W & colour, 385 pages,  1.2kg, $75.00*

One of the best local histories published in WA and a beautiful book. A new edition with some upgrading. Essential reading.

Potjostler.

The life of William Carr Boyd. Explorer, Prospector, and Raconteur.

By Peter J Bridge, Ian Elliot, Ian Murray, and Gail Dreezens.

ISBN 978-0-85905-854-4, (2021), A4, french flaps, illustrated, 453 pages, 1.3kg, $80.00*

A documentary biography and history of one of Australia’s most interesting and amusing explorers and bushmen (1852-1925).

Published jointly with the Laverton Shire and under the aegis of the Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project as an ancillary volume. Laverton Great Beyond shop. HP for mail order.

Top of the River: A history of sailing at Maylands and the Maylands Yacht Club

by Chris Holyday & Terry Gaunt Snr

ISBN 978-0-85905-907-7, (New, 2021), A4, 104 pp, heavily illustrated, 330 grams, $30.00*

Available from the Maylands Yacht Club.

What the hell was that? A conservation biologist’s journey in Australia & Asia.

Darrell Kitchener.

ISBN 978-0-85905-899-5, (2021), A4, French flaps, illustrated, 205 pages, 600 grams, $55.00*

Raised in a wild Tasmanian timber town, this book traces the authors experiences as a biologist in Tasmania, Western Australia, and Asia. It provides examples of the constant wrestle between conservationists and resource developers in these regions. He spent his last 30 years working on a variety of projects, including conservation of Sumatran Orangutan, Javanese Rhinoceros, national parks, forests and watersheds in a many Indonesian landscapes. He built a heritage hotel beneath a smoking volcano in Java and published on Javanese painters and ancient trade ceramics found beneath the Musi River in Sumatra.

 The first part, highlights stories of modern exploration on those islands visited by Alfred Wallace in southern Indonesia at the interface of the Australian and Indomalayan Biogeographic realms, and in the Western Australian Wheatbelt and Kimberley Regions. The second part provides readers insights on the effectiveness of work done by international NGOs in Indonesia and the nature of the enabling environment for expatriate conservationists. 

William Ford & Coolgardie. Index. 

Michael Lance, Gail Dreezens, Peter J. Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-908-4, (2021), A5, 8 pages, 30 grams, $10.00*

Yampi Frontier. Constable Fletcher in the search for the murderers of Conde and Jones.
 

by Peter J Bridge.

ISBN 978-0-85905-878-0, (New 2021), A4, illustrated, 34 pages, Indexed, 155 grams, $22.00*

JP Jones was viciously murdered by the Yampi savages in 1909. Paul Conde, (Mad Jack) had been murdered in the same area 4 years previously. Suffering with recurrent fever PC Fletcher (Kuhlman) tracked and captured the murderous tribe in an expedition into exceptionally rough country. He was rewarded for his bravery. But several years later a degenerate Filipino slashed his jugular outside a Broome hotel.