TRUE TALES OF THE ROARING 40s
Travel back to the 19th century for Tasmanian tales of:
- A big-game hunter and explorer who travelled from the heart of Tasmania to the heart of Africa
- Death masks of poisoners & preachers, criminals and politicians, and phrenology in Tasmania
- A transported Irish political prisoner fired by injustice who escaped from Tasmania in the night and became a respected US politician and Civil War leader
The Big Game Hunter of Quorn Hall
As the sun sets on England’s Empire, Victoria’s sons become ever more distant memories in family archives. One such devoted Empire son, Thomas William Henric (TWH) Clarke, of Quorn Hall, Campbell Town, Tasmania, gave his home the distinction of housing the largest collection of trophy heads in the Southern Hemisphere. Let’s visit this colonial gentleman and hear about his adventures in his own words. After some background, we’ll delve into three of TWH’s safari diaries.
A Tale of Heads
Our journey begins at the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, Tasmania, in a dusty storeroom far removed from the museum’s timeless beauty. In the storeroom, staff work in white gloves over thousands of pieces of plaster of paris from a collection bequeathed by John Watt Beattie (1848-1920), Tasmania’s premier landscape photographer. When their work is done, staff will have assembled the shards into plaster heads which are death masks of the famous and infamous.
The Lost Years of Meagher of the Sword
Banish a dynamic Irishman to one of the world’s remotest backwaters and expect him to lead a low-key rural life, and what happens? How does he escape to lead the Irish Brigade in the U.S. Civil War and become Acting Governor of Montana?
NEWS
May-June 2012
Black Bag Moon publication date: June 21, 2012
Secrets from the Black Bag
Now available as an ebook:
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Medical humanities
I am now on the International Editorial Board of Hektoen International, an online medical humanities journal out of Chicago, USA.
We're redefining medical fiction from hospital dramas, thrillers, bodice-ripping romance and thinly-veiled reminiscences and anecdotes. What do you think?
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The AFTBACK Chronicles
Contemporary satire. Three stuffed animals endure internet brides and bear poaching in China, autism in the Wild West and cyberspace psychoanalysis so their human mistress can endure a year's separation from her husband. Read more
Just Add Nauseam
Modern mystery. What lurks beneath the surface in Tasmania? Asylum seekers save the day. Eco-terrorists, old wills, egotistical chefs and a climate change scientist as murder suspect are waiting for you ... Read more
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Secrets from the Black Bag
Recommended Text of General Practice Training Tasmania and Recommended Reading for the [medical] Association of Course Organisers in the UK.