{"product_id":"2940013684195","title":"The Swampers","description":"I have to thank the following gentlemen for the prompt and hearty\u003cbr\u003eassistance which they have given me in books, maps, and personal\u003cbr\u003einformation about West Australia and its Goldfields at the present hour.\u003cbr\u003ehaving taken full advantage of such valuable information, I trust that\u003cbr\u003ethe reader will find this romance correct in its local colouring and\u003cbr\u003estatistics. To Mr. Albert F. Calvert, M.E., F.R.G.S., \u0026amp;c., \u0026amp;c., Author\u003cbr\u003eof \"The Exploration of Australia\"; \"Western Australia and its\u003cbr\u003eGoldfields\"; Editor and Proprietor of The West Australian Review, for\u003cbr\u003ehis magnificent and exhaustive works and maps. Also to those other\u003cbr\u003efriends, Messrs. Critchill; Ernest H. Gough; Graham Hill; Philip\u003cbr\u003eMennell, F.R.G.S., \u0026amp;c., Author of \"The Coming Colony,\" \"Dictionary of\u003cbr\u003eAustralian Biography,\" \u0026amp;c., \u0026amp;c., and Editor and Proprietor of The\u003cbr\u003eBritish Australasian; also to Mr. John Wilson, first Mayor of\u003cbr\u003eKalgourlie. To all these gentlemen and others who have supplied me with\u003cbr\u003einformation I beg to offer my most grateful thanks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI must appeal to the good sense of my West Australian readers, and trust\u003cbr\u003ethat they will not try to see real personages in my fictitious\u003cbr\u003ecreations. Kalgourlie is as yet a small, if it is a rapidly-growing\u003cbr\u003etown, and each resident is known to his fellow-townsmen. The\u003cbr\u003epeculiarities of mankind are so mixed and generalized that it is not at\u003cbr\u003eall difficult for a reader to fix an original for my fancy study in any\u003cbr\u003espot where men and women congregate. This habit, so unfair and crippling\u003cbr\u003eto an author's liberty of action, I must particularly warn you against\u003cbr\u003eindulging in. I built the \"Chester Hotel\" entirely at my own expense,\u003cbr\u003eand as my own speculation. The material was not Hessian, but a finer web\u003cbr\u003eof stuff which I spun from my own brain. Sarah Hall, Rosa Chester,\u003cbr\u003eAnthony Vandyke Jenkins, Bob Wallace, and my other characters, all came\u003cbr\u003efrom the same source, and are as Mercutio says:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTherefore you must take them as such, and not localize or incarnate one\u003cbr\u003eof them. On this privileged ground I strictly take my stand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRegarding any mild criticism that I may have written throughout these\u003cbr\u003epages concerning the fair City of Sydney, I have no apology to make\u003cbr\u003eother than that perhaps my various visits may have been timed\u003cbr\u003eunfortunately when the inhabitants were suffering from some insensate\u003cbr\u003eepidemic. Perhaps they have lucid intervals between these public and\u003cbr\u003esocial epidemics of folly and unreason, and that during these intervals\u003cbr\u003ethey act like their neighbours, Victoria, Queensland, and South\u003cbr\u003eAustralia, but if so, I have not had the good fortune to land amongst\u003cbr\u003ethem at such happy intervals; therefore I can only speak as I find\u003cbr\u003epeople, and the natives of Sydney have not impressed me so favourably as\u003cbr\u003etheir neighbour colonials of Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide have\u003cbr\u003edone, either for their probity, generosity, or common sense. As for that\u003cbr\u003eworm \"Puffadder,\" with his blasphemous, brutal, and poisonous organ, I\u003cbr\u003edo not think any self-respecting colonial will care how much a reptile\u003cbr\u003elike this is criticised or censured. He may spit out his venom, but he\u003cbr\u003ewould do that under any circumstances, particularly when his victim's\u003cbr\u003eback is turned upon him. His unsexed contributors may also snarl and\u003cbr\u003eyelp, while his senile admirers, who have debauched the little brains\u003cbr\u003ewhich originally they may have possessed, with his absinthe doses,\u003cbr\u003edoubtless will gnash their gums and cry for gore, but as \"Walker,\u003cbr\u003eLondon,\" remarks: \"That is noth ink.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy story is before you, sympathetic or hostile readers, and I trust it\u003cbr\u003emay interest you with all its faults. The characters are purely\u003cbr\u003eimaginative, but some of the incidents are drawn from facts, and in the\u003cbr\u003edescriptions I have done my utmost to be exact and realistic.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070191321328,"sku":"2940013684195","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013684195_p0.jpg?v=1763584322","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013684195","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}