Encountering Terra Australis

Encountering Terra Australis traces the parallel lives and voyages of the explorers Flinders and Baudin, as they travelled to Australia and explored the coastline of mainland Australia and Tasmania. Unusually, the book takes its lead from the voyages of Baudin, rather than Flinders. Furthermore the authors have sourced original accounts including material which has never before been available in English. Extensively illustrated in colour and black and white.

Encountering Terra Australis traces the parallel lives and voyages of the explorers Flinders and Baudin, as they travelled to Australia and explored the coastline of mainland Australia and Tasmania. Unusually, the book takes its lead from the voyages of Baudin, rather than Flinders, providing a rather different interpretation than those presently circulating. Furthermore the authors have worked using their own totally fresh translation of Baudin's journals, sourcing original accounts including material which has never before been available in English. Extensively illustrated in colour and black and white. Jean Fornasiero teaches French in the Centre for European Studies at Adelaide University, John West - Sooby is head of the centre and Peter Monteath is head of history at Flinders University.?

When Matthew Flinders set out in 1801 to carry out a 'complete examination and survey' of the coast of New Holland, little did he know that he would be away for over ten years. Although he did not coin the term 'Australia' he keenly advocated its use, rather than the clumsy 'Terra Australis' and will always be associated with its adoption. As well as his meticulous surveys and maps, he made many observations on ship-board life, flora and fauna, and the appearance and customs of the native peoples he encountered. Volume 1 starts with a thorough review of previous exploratory voyages to the great Southern continent, and then proceeds to describe the first part of his journey, from Portsmouth to Port Jackson (Sydney).

Terra Australis - the southern land - was one of the most widespread concepts in European geography from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, although the notion of a land mass in the southern seas had been prevalent since classical antiquity. Despite this fact, there has been relatively little sustained scholarly work on European concepts of Terra Australis or the intellectual background to European voyages of discovery and exploration to Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Through interdisciplinary scholarly contributions, ranging across history, the visual arts, literature and popular culture, this volume considers the continuities and discontinuities between the imagined space of Terra Australis and its subsequent manifestation. It will shed new light on familiar texts, people and events - such as the Dutch and French explorations of Australia, the Batavia shipwreck and the Baudin expedition - by setting them in unexpected contexts and alongside unfamiliar texts and people. The book will be of interest to, among others, intellectual and cultural historians, literary scholars, historians of cartography, the visual arts, women's and post-colonial studies.

Reproduction of the original: A Voyage To Terra Australis by Matthew Flinders

In this edited selection of his journals, Matthew Flinders, Australia’s greatest navigator and the man who named our island continent, describes in captivating detail his epic mission to map our shores between 1796 and 1803.