Author: Bates, Daisy.

Publisher: London: John Murray.

Format: Hardcover octavo, brown cloth boards with illustrated dust jacket, 17 illustrations and a map, xviii + 254pp, 22.3 x 14cm.

First Australian edition. Daisy Bates (1859–1951) was an Irish/Australian journalist who moved to Western Australia in 1899 and developed an interest in Australian Indigenous people. She was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1934 by King George V “for her devoted service to a primitive race” [p.ix]. Much of the language used in this book is paternalistic and makes claims of infanticide and cannibalism. “Bates was influenced by the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism and believed that Aboriginal Australians were primitive and ‘physically uncivilizable’. She consequently believed, as did many others in her time, that Aboriginal Australians were a ‘dying race’. Therefore, her mission was to ‘smooth the dying pillow’ and to record as much as she could before they disappeared.”

Many of Daisy Bates’ claims, about her anthropological work and personal life, have been refuted and speculated on over time. She stills presents as a controversial figure in Australian academia. Ref: Wiki; NMA; NLA.

Dust jacket price-clipped with some paper loss and creases, previous owner’s inscription in ink on flyleaf.