Background to Norfolk Island

The double centenary of the discovery of Norfolk Island by Captain Cook, celebrated on the island on October 10, has brought with it a rush of Norfolk Island literature.

But all are the sort of books and booklets which have a long life, and they are not some ephemeral get-rich quick pot-boilers.

R. N. Dalkin’s Colonial Era Cemetery of Norfolk Island (Pacific Publications, $6) was reviewed in these columns last month, and is already selling steadily on the island.

Among the acknowledgements given by the author in that book was one to Merval Hoare, secretary of the Norfolk Island Historical Society which was founded by Mr Dalkin —and Mrs Hoare this month has her name on two books of her own. One is a newly revised edition of her Rambler’s Guide to Norfolk Island, which can now be said to be well established, and the other is an at tractive booklet called The Discovery of Norfolk Island.

The Rambler’s Guide was first pub lished in 1965, and the new edition

is the fifth (the fourth was pub lished in 1972). The guide is a potted illustrated history of that historic island, 900 miles north-east of Sydney, but with detailed chap ters on just what to see, whether you ramble by foot or by hired vehicle.

Mrs Hoare seems to know the history of every road, every feature of the island, so her guide makes fascinating reading besides being a practical where-and-what-is-it. This new edition has newly drawn maps and a new full-colour cover.

The Discovery of Norfolk Island is only 24 pages, but most attractively presented in a booklet published by the Australian Government Publish ing Service in Canberra. The illus trations include watercolour draw ings and etchings connected with

Cook’s explorations.

The book concentrates on Cook’s second voyage during which he dis covered the island, and gives verba tim extracts of the discovery from Cook, from the expedition’s astro nomer, William Wales, the expedi tion’s naturalists, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son George, and ex tracts from the log of Joseph Gilbert, the master, Charles Clarke, the second lieutenant, and extracts from the journal of Robert Cooper, the first lieutenant.

There is an index and select biblio graphy. The booklet is an attractive, small addition to Norfolkana.

(Rambler’S Guide To Norfolk

ISLAND, by Merval Hoare. Published by Pacific Publications, GPO Box 3408, Sydney.

$1.90. The Discovery Of Norfolk

ISLAND, by Merval Hoare. Published by the Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 65 cents.)