The Mermaid Tree

How a tiny unknown ship opened Australia's north and west to development, dreams and disappointment.

For generations of Australians, the great navigators of the golden age of Antipodean maritime exploration - Cook, Bligh, la Perouse, Bougainville and Flinders - have long been household names.

The significance of their discoveries and their contribution to the settlement and development of our island continent is widely appreciated and can hardly be overestimated. However, about their successors - the hydrographers and explorers of the period 1815-1850 - much less is generally known.

In this meticulously researched history, Robert Tiley seeks to fill some of the gaps in the national consciousness by writing of the trials, accomplishments and sheer intrepidity of Frenchmen such as Freycinet, d'Urville and Duperrey; of Britons such as Phillip Parker King, Stokes, Blackwood, Owen Stanley and Wickham, and their valuable work in mapping the eastern, northern and western coastlines of the enormous Australian land mass.