Founder Of A City
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: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Tanning and foxing
In the bold and unforgiving landscape of colonial Australia, one man's ambition and vision gave birth to a city that would endure for centuries — Founder of a City chronicles the remarkable life of Colonel William Light, the surveyor-general whose genius and determination laid the foundations of Adelaide in 1836. Geoffrey Dutton's authoritative biography presents Light not merely as a historical figure but as a complex, passionate man — soldier, painter, navigator, and visionary — whose singular plan for a city would outlast the controversies and political battles that plagued his final years. Dutton uncovers the tensions between Light and the colonial authorities who opposed his grand design, illuminating the personal sacrifices and professional humiliations endured by a man who remained utterly convinced of his own rightness. Written with the elegance and depth that distinguished Dutton as one of Australia's foremost literary figures, this work stands as a definitive portrait of colonial ambition and the turbulent birth of a nation's institutions. Dutton's prose is vivid and assured, situating Light's story within the broader currents of British imperial expansion and the raw, contested early years of South Australian settlement. For anyone who has walked Adelaide's wide, ordered streets and wondered at the mind that conceived them, this biography offers a deeply satisfying — and quietly haunting — answer.
Author: Geoffrey Dutton
Format: Hardback
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Tanning and foxing
In the bold and unforgiving landscape of colonial Australia, one man's ambition and vision gave birth to a city that would endure for centuries — Founder of a City chronicles the remarkable life of Colonel William Light, the surveyor-general whose genius and determination laid the foundations of Adelaide in 1836. Geoffrey Dutton's authoritative biography presents Light not merely as a historical figure but as a complex, passionate man — soldier, painter, navigator, and visionary — whose singular plan for a city would outlast the controversies and political battles that plagued his final years. Dutton uncovers the tensions between Light and the colonial authorities who opposed his grand design, illuminating the personal sacrifices and professional humiliations endured by a man who remained utterly convinced of his own rightness. Written with the elegance and depth that distinguished Dutton as one of Australia's foremost literary figures, this work stands as a definitive portrait of colonial ambition and the turbulent birth of a nation's institutions. Dutton's prose is vivid and assured, situating Light's story within the broader currents of British imperial expansion and the raw, contested early years of South Australian settlement. For anyone who has walked Adelaide's wide, ordered streets and wondered at the mind that conceived them, this biography offers a deeply satisfying — and quietly haunting — answer.