***The 1853 Controversial Bestseller***

In 1852 a genteel young English woman of modest means cannily realised that not everyone who made money from the Australian gold-fields struck it rich by actually digging. Pregnant and not yet married, she accompanied her brother to Victoria and spent two months writing a non-fiction manuscript of her time there. After returning to England, she sold the book to a London publisher and her writerly ambitions came to fruition.

She wrote anonymously. But since the 1980s, researchers have become increasingly sure the author was Ellen Clacy, maiden name Sturmer.

While some researchers have accused Clacy of plagiarism and fabrication, others have pointed out the limitations of historical documentation.

The gold-rush era is so foreign to us today, that even the bald facts sometimes read like sensationalised fiction. In other ways, the 21st century is not so different from the 19th.

This audiobook has been edited for listening ease. A new introduction by Amberley Ember underscores the major crime of this story: the invisibilization of First Nations people, with the theft and the destruction of their land.

Ellen Clacy

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