Very Strange Tales: The Turbulent Times Of Samuel Marsden
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Few figures in the colonial history of Australia and New Zealand provoke as much fascination — and controversy — as Samuel Marsden, the firebrand clergyman whose life spanned the brutal frontier of the early British settlements. Very Strange Tales: The Turbulent Times of Samuel Marsden chronicles the remarkable and often scandalous story of a man who served simultaneously as a man of God and a magistrate of feared severity, earning the notorious sobriquet the flogging parson for his harsh judicial rulings while paradoxically becoming a pioneering missionary to the Māori people of New Zealand. Bill Wannan presents this compelling portrait against a vivid backdrop of convict-era Sydney, frontier lawlessness, and the clashing worlds of colonial ambition and indigenous tradition. Wannan, celebrated for his deep knowledge of Australian folklore and colonial history, writes with a keen eye for the absurd contradictions that defined the age — a tone that is at once wry and richly authoritative. The narrative uncovers the profound tensions of a society struggling to define itself at the edge of the known world, where piety and punishment walked hand in hand. A masterful blend of biography and social history, this work illustrates why Marsden remains one of the most paradoxical and compelling characters of the Pacific colonial era — leaving the reader to wonder where righteousness ends and tyranny begins.
Author: Bill Wannan
Format: Hardback
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Few figures in the colonial history of Australia and New Zealand provoke as much fascination — and controversy — as Samuel Marsden, the firebrand clergyman whose life spanned the brutal frontier of the early British settlements. Very Strange Tales: The Turbulent Times of Samuel Marsden chronicles the remarkable and often scandalous story of a man who served simultaneously as a man of God and a magistrate of feared severity, earning the notorious sobriquet the flogging parson for his harsh judicial rulings while paradoxically becoming a pioneering missionary to the Māori people of New Zealand. Bill Wannan presents this compelling portrait against a vivid backdrop of convict-era Sydney, frontier lawlessness, and the clashing worlds of colonial ambition and indigenous tradition. Wannan, celebrated for his deep knowledge of Australian folklore and colonial history, writes with a keen eye for the absurd contradictions that defined the age — a tone that is at once wry and richly authoritative. The narrative uncovers the profound tensions of a society struggling to define itself at the edge of the known world, where piety and punishment walked hand in hand. A masterful blend of biography and social history, this work illustrates why Marsden remains one of the most paradoxical and compelling characters of the Pacific colonial era — leaving the reader to wonder where righteousness ends and tyranny begins.