Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne

Bearbrass: Imagining Early Melbourne
By Robyn Annear

In 'Bearbrass', 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 early Melbourne was known and Annear provides a fascinating living portrait of the street life of this town.

Robyn Annear uses her knowledge of the buildings and streets of Melbourne and a good imagination to weave stories about the early citizens of Port Phillip.

Bearbrass - Imagining Early Melbourne was written following her involvement in an architectural dig in Melbourne. Intrigued by articles unearthed, she began to create stories around actual or imaginary people to create an impression of what it was like to live in those years after 1835.

One of the articles found on the dig was a bag of bottle stoppers. Stretching her imagination, Robyn concocted a story in which she changed the bag into one of the Guernsey type frocks which John Pascoe Fawkner provided for his field workers, and the stoppers she changed into the cat owned by Mary Gilbert, one of the first white women to live in the Port Phillip District. We are invited to imagine that Mary Gilbert's cat had died after a fight with a possum and was buried, wrapped in one of Fawkner's frocks.

Buy Online: amazon.com.au

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