Robyn Annear's Books

Bearbrass

Imagining Early Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

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Bearbrass

Imagining Early Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

“Just a little way down Collins Street, beside Henry Buck's, is a perpetually dark but sheltered laneway called Equitable Place. Here you'll find a number of places to eat and drink. Settle yourself in the window of one, shut your eyes, and picture this scene of yore ...” In this much-loved book, Robyn Annear resurrects the village that was early Melbourne – from the arrival of white settlers in 1835 until the first gold rushes shook the town – and brings it to life in vivid colour. Bearbrass was one of the local names by which Melbourne was known and Annear provides a fascinating living portrait of the streetlife of this town. In a lively and engaging style, she overlays her reinvention of Bearbrass with her own impressions and experiences of the modern city, enabling Melburnians and visitors to imagine the early township and remind themselves of the rich history that lies beneath today's modern metropolis. The original Bearbrass won the A.A. Phillips Award for Australian Studies in the 1995 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. “... [Annear] writes with an historian's eye for detail and a flair for ironic observation. An affectionate journey, rich in detail and character.” – The Age Robyn Annear is an ex-typist who lives in country Victoria with somebody else's husband. She is the author of A City Lost and Found, Bearbrass, Nothing But Gold, The Man Who Lost Himself, and Fly a Rebel Flag. She has also written several pieces for The Monthly magazine.

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Page Count

257

Publisher

Black Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1922231576

ISBN 13

9781922231574

Adrift in Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

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Adrift in Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

Take a walk through Melbourne’s streets and discover a world of fascinating historical tidbits with renowned writer and history buff Robyn Annear.

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277

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Text Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1922459208

ISBN 13

9781922459206

Bearbrass

Imagining Early Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

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Bearbrass

Imagining Early Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

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Page Count

257

Publisher

Black Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1922231576

ISBN 13

9781922231574

Adrift in Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

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Adrift in Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

Take a walk through Melbourne’s streets and discover a world of fascinating historical tidbits with renowned writer and history buff Robyn Annear.

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277

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Text Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1922459208

ISBN 13

9781922459206

Corners of Melbourne

The great orange-peel panic and other stories from the streets

By: Robyn Annear

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Corners of Melbourne

The great orange-peel panic and other stories from the streets

By: Robyn Annear

What better defines a city than its street corners? A corner gives you a starting point, a destination and a place to turn. It’s furnished with pillar boxes, newsstands and tram stops, and lamp-posts for light and lounging. Where would you be likeliest to find a pub? At the corner, of course. And who better than Robyn Annear to usher you around the corners of Melbourne, and reveal their bizarre, baroque and mostly forgotten stories? In this (appropriately corner-shaped) book she will introduce you to: street-corner ‘galvanisers’ who offered the thrill of electric shock at threepence a time the rude boys of the Fitzroy back streets who became the original ‘larrikins’ infants named for the corners on which they’d been abandoned a rogues’ gallery of unruly women, incorrigible men and runaway horses ...and, of course, the civic reprobates who discarded orange peel in the streets, to the endangerment of life and limb. Robyn Annear’s books include Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne, Nothing but Gold: The Diggers of 1852, Nothing New: A History of Second-hand and Adrift in Melbourne. Her podcast ‘Nothing on TV’ presents stories from Trove historical newspapers. Robyn also appeared in the popular 2022 documentary, The Lost City of Melbourne. ‘Annear tackles her sprawling subject matter with her trademark wit and her knack for singling out the perfect historical reference.’ Age ‘An unexpected delight. Annear writes history with a smile but with a deadly acerbic stare...On this tour of Melbourne we are in the best possible hands.’ Saturday Paper

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Page Count

297

Publisher

Text Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

192279158X

ISBN 13

9781922791580

Nothing New

A History of Second-hand

By: Robyn Annear

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Nothing New

A History of Second-hand

By: Robyn Annear

Robyn Annear lends her signature wit to this fantastic history of second-hand: from the origins of the op shop to eBay, up-cycling and how new became normal.

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Page Count

299

Publisher

Text Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1925923010

ISBN 13

9781925923018

A City Lost and Found

Whelan the Wrecker's Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

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A City Lost and Found

Whelan the Wrecker's Melbourne

By: Robyn Annear

“Old landmarks fall in nearly every block ... and the face of the city is changing so rapidly that the time is not too far distant when a search for a building 50 years old will be in vain.” — Herald, 1925. The demolition firm of Whelan the Wrecker was a Melbourne institution for a hundred years (1892-1992). Its famous sign – ‘Whelan the Wrecker is Here’ on a pile of shifting rubble – was a laconic masterpiece and served as a vital sign of the city’s progress. It’s no stretch to say that over three generations, the Whelan family changed the face of Melbourne, demolishing hundreds of buildings in the central city alone. In A City Lost and Found, Robyn Annear uses Whelan’s demolition sites as portals to explore layers of the city laid bare by their pick-axes and iron balls. Peering beneath the rubble, she brings to light fantastic stories about Melbourne’s building sites and their many incarnations. This is a book about the making – and remaking – of a city.

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Page Count

373

Publisher

Black Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

192223141X

ISBN 13

9781922231413

The Man Who Lost Himself

the Unbelievable Story of the Tichborne Claimant

By: Robyn Annear

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The Man Who Lost Himself

the Unbelievable Story of the Tichborne Claimant

By: Robyn Annear

When Tom Castro declared himself to be Roger, the Tichborne heir, and headed for London to claim his inheritance, not even Roger’s mother could tell them apart. By 1871 he was the most notorious celebrity in Great Britain or Australia. But who was he? And what was his story?

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Page Count

379

Publisher

Text Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1921799889

ISBN 13

9781921799884

Relentless Reformer

Josephine Roche and Progressivism in Twentieth-Century America

By: Robyn Muncy

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Relentless Reformer

Josephine Roche and Progressivism in Twentieth-Century America

By: Robyn Muncy

Josephine Roche (1886–1976) was a progressive activist, New Deal policymaker, and businesswoman. As a pro-labor and feminist member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, she shaped the founding legislation of the U.S. welfare state and generated the national conversation about health-care policy that Americans are still having today. In this gripping biography, Robyn Muncy offers Roche’s persistent progressivism as evidence for surprising continuities among the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society. Muncy explains that Roche became the second-highest-ranking woman in the New Deal government after running a Colorado coal company in partnership with coal miners themselves. Once in office, Roche developed a national health plan that was stymied by World War II but enacted piecemeal during the postwar period, culminating in Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. By then, Roche directed the United Mine Workers of America Welfare and Retirement Fund, an initiative aimed at bolstering the labor movement, advancing managed health care, and reorganizing medicine to facilitate national health insurance, one of Roche’s unrealized dreams. In Relentless Reformer, Muncy uses Roche’s dramatic life story—from her stint as Denver’s first policewoman in 1912 to her fight against a murderous labor union official in 1972—as a unique vantage point from which to examine the challenges that women have faced in public life and to reassess the meaning and trajectory of progressive reform.

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Page Count

439

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400852412

ISBN 13

9781400852413

Nothing But Gold

The Diggers of 1852

By: Robyn Annear

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Nothing But Gold

The Diggers of 1852

By: Robyn Annear

Gold was discovered in Australia in 1851, and within a year the infant colony was transformed from a sump for convicts to a Land of Opportunity. Robyn Annear's lively history describes in detail life on the diggings: the mud of winter and dust of summer, the pluckiness of the women and children, the grog shanties, the flies, the mania of mining, the despair and the delirium, and the much hated licensing system which was to culminate in the Eureka Stockade. 'Robyn Annear tells the story of the 1852 gold rushes in imaginative detail ... she tells us how it felt to be there. You find yourself worrying about the problems long ago resolved, sharply aware of the gold diggers' hopes and ordeals, diverted by the high comedy of a chaotic life. Like all good narratives, it looks easy because it is so easily read and enjoyed ... She makes a mosaic out of small moments of experience ... The physical realities of the diggings are evoked, with all the ingenious ways of managing tent space, cooking, guarding gold, finding feed for horses, keeping off wind and rain, ants and mice.' Brenda Niall Robyn Annear was born in Melbourne in 1960. She spends her time writing and researching, typing for other people and looking after her family. She is also a part-time bookseller and President of the Friends of the Castlemaine Library. 'History from the inside; wonderfully entertaining.' Age 'A welcome addition to Australian history, pointing to badly needed ways in which history can be made more reader-friendly.' Quadrant

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Page Count

342

Publisher

Text Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1921799897

ISBN 13

9781921799891

Nothing New

A History of Second-hand

By: Robyn Annear

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Nothing New

A History of Second-hand

By: Robyn Annear

Robyn Annear lends her signature wit to this fantastic history of second-hand: from the origins of the op shop to eBay, up-cycling and how new became normal.

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Page Count

299

Publisher

Text Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1922268305

ISBN 13

9781922268303

Fly a Rebel Flag

The Eureka Stockade

By: Robyn Annear

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Fly a Rebel Flag

The Eureka Stockade

By: Robyn Annear

When government troops stormed the Eureka Stockade, the battle lasted just twenty minutes, but it changed Australia forever.

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Page Count

138

Publisher

Black Dog Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1921167432

ISBN 13

9781921167430

Fly a Rebel Flag

The Battle at Eureka

By: Robyn Annear

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Fly a Rebel Flag

The Battle at Eureka

By: Robyn Annear

A fictionalised account of the Eureka stockade battle. The diggers made a stand against license fees and police harassment. They took up arms, built a stockade and swore to defend themselves. When government troops stormed the Eureka stockade the battle lasted just twenty minutes, but it changed Australia forever. Age 10+.

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Page Count

149

Published Date

ISBN 10

1876372230

ISBN 13

9781876372231

Burke & Wills

Expedition Off the Map

By: Karen Tayleur,Robyn Annear

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Burke & Wills

Expedition Off the Map

By: Karen Tayleur,Robyn Annear

On 20 August 1860, nineteen men and twenty-six camels set off from Melbourne for a journey that would take them northwards across Australia. Only one man ever made it back. This is the story of the Burke & Wills expedition.

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ISBN 10

1742031390

ISBN 13

9781742031392

Book's by Robyn Annear

Bearbrass

Bearbrass

Adrift in Melbourne

Adrift in Melbourne

Bearbrass

Bearbrass

Adrift in Melbourne

Adrift in Melbourne

Corners of Melbourne

Corners of Melbourne

Nothing New

Nothing New

A City Lost and Found

A City Lost and Found

The Man Who Lost Himself

The Man Who Lost Himself

Relentless Reformer

Relentless Reformer

Nothing But Gold

Nothing But Gold

Nothing New

Nothing New

Fly a Rebel Flag

Fly a Rebel Flag

Fly a Rebel Flag

Fly a Rebel Flag

Burke & Wills

Burke & Wills

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