Gympie Gold

A dramatic story of Queensland gold. Hector Holthouse’s earlier book, River of Gold, gave a lively account of the Palmer River gold-rush in the 1870s. In this book, Hector has turned his attention to the discovery of gold at Gympie. Combining thorough historical research with a dramatic reconstruction of events, he has written a colourful, authentic documentary of a fascinating era in Australia’s past. For fifty years after James Nash discovered gold in 1867 at the spot on the Mary River in Queensland where Gympie now stands, gold was the town’s main source of income. And in that period the lure of a fortune made from gold was responsible for many dramatic events – the sensational Escort Murder, hold-ups by bushrangers, battles between Chinese and European prospectors – which Hector vividly describes against a background of life in a frontier town with all its hardships. Illustrated with drawings and photographs of the period and the author’s own photographs of present-day Gympie, Gympie Gold is popular history at its most readable. pp. 209 illusts #1217