Australian History … does not read like history, but like the most beautiful lies.
A quote from: ‘Following the Equator’ 1897 Mark Twain
Learning about Colonial Aus. is a passion of mine, as many of my readers know. Discovering Mark Twain’s travelogues was truly a delight … how ignorant of me not to know of his writings about Australia at the turn of the century!
Ignorance is bliss is it not? We often read the most contemporary of works instead of those older texts, the classics and the hidden gems to be found in the Trove and the newssheets of yesteryear and on dusty shelves of a library. I have always enjoyed delving into the peoples history of yesteryear in old newssheets, but there is never enough time to read all that I would so enjoy to venture into. Mark Twain was an author such as I had not fully explored. I guess him being a Yank (seppo’ in colloquial terms) had something to do with this, I of course had read Huckleberry Finn and others but I had enough trouble with time in exploring our Aussie writers … so much to read, so little time.
What Mark Twain was referring to in the quoted text is the lies and misinformation Australians are fed even back as far as our Federation in 1901.
Jan Hawkins Author 