AustLit

'At the age of 13 Sidney Kidman ran away from home with only five shillings in his pocket. He went on to become a horse dealer, drover, cattle buyer and bush jockey and he also ran a coach business. Above all, Kidman created a mighty cattle empire of more than a hundred stations, fighting droughts, bushfires, floods and plagues of vermin to do so. His enterprise and courage won him a huge fortune and made him a legend. ' (Publication summary)

'One hundred years after the charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade at Beersheba in October 1917...The Desert Column is based on the diaries that he kept through out the war. Published in 1932, it is one of Idriess' earliest works. Harry Chauvel noted in the foreword that it was the only book of the campaign that to his knowledge was "viewed entirely from the private soldier's point of view"...Idriess served as a sniper with the 5th Australian Light Horse. Enlisting in 1914, he began his diary "as we crowded the decks off Gallipoli" and he continued writing until returning to Australia...The diaries cover his experience of some of the war's major events from life in the trenches at Gallipoli to the battles at Romani and Beersheba. One of Idriess' strengths as a writer is his ability to place the reader at the scene of the action...The diaries reveal a keenness of observation and a descriptive and pacey style that Idriess would develop further in The Desert Column.' (Synopsis)

'North West Australia - in the Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges, formerly known as the King Leopold Ranges between 1879 and 2020, is the setting for the story of Aboriginal leader Jandamarra and his fight against white invasion of his country.

'Jandamarra, who was also known as Pigeon, had been a blacktracker of great prowess in the Kimberleys before he suddenly turned against the whites. The tribes in his territory were classed as outstanding aboriginal types, and the gang he raised after killing a mounted constable in 1894 was formidable not only in numbers but in cunning and resourcefulness... (his) brilliant strategy, his coldly calculated opportunism, his use of interlocking cave-systems in the Leopolds for getaways, his courage and, above all, his remarkable ability to control his fellow-natives, presented threats beyond the capacity of local patrols to handle.

'Idriess suggests that if Jandamarra had had just a little more time in the early stages of his campaign to organise his forces, he might have succeeded in driving white men out of the Kimberleys altogether. - Sydney Morning Herald'  (Publication summary)