The
Lure Of The Golden West: Experiences and Adventures in a Bush
Brotherhood of Western Australia: Early Problems and Conquests: All
about Group Settlements of the West: The Land of Sunshine and
Opportunity by Thomas Sidney Groser. Hardcover
book (no dust jacket) published by Alexander-Ouseley Limited (no
date, probably 1920s), 287 pages with a few extra pages of
advertising.
The Lure
Of The Golden West. Recently i've been keeping my eyes open for
Western fiction. Yes, that's right, books about cowboys. It's a subject I know very
little about... actually... I know absolutely nothing about it. So I
guess my keeping my eyes open is more about trying to learn something and to give some of it a go. The reason I want to “give it a
go”, is that I often get inquiries about the genre and when
potential customers are confronted by the three old and tired titles
I currently have in stock, they tend to loose interest very quickly.
So the idea of finding something that someone may want is quite
appealing particularly when there is $ involved, and it is this
thought and the picture of a man on a horse on the cover, that
attracted me to this title.
...except
this book has nothing to do with Western fiction.
It has
everything to do with the history of Western Australia particularly
with something called the Bush Brotherhood. So what is the Bush
Brotherhood? From what I can gather it had (or has?) something to do
with religious personnel and activities in remote parts of Australia.
“1897
- Nathaniel Dawes establishes the Bush Brotherhood (Church of
England) with preachers on horseback providing ministry to those
living in rural and remote areas”
also
this article has some information
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/16276521
I
quickly realised my error re this books lack of cowboy contents after
reading the subtitle. The words “Western Australia”, “Group
Settlements” and “Land of Sunshine and Opportunity” are
possibly the best indicator that the book does not contain any shoot
outs, campfire yarns or dodgy Indian stories and one can only hope
that as with “Westerns”, there are some horses and big hats
involved in this history of Western Australia. The words Bush
Brotherhood on the other hand escaped my notice at the time of
purchase which is not a bad thing, but is something I should possibly
have noticed at the time.
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