About the Author

Manning Clark, an authority on the history of Australia, was born in Sydney in 1915, the son of an Anglican clergyman. He won a scholarship to the University of Melbourne, and later studied at Oxford. He lectured at the University of Melbourne before becoming Professor of History at the Australian National University. In 1975 he was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in recognition of his major work, A History of Australia. He has been Visiting Professor of Australian History at Duke and Harvard Universities in the USA, and now holds the position of Library Fellow at the Australian National University. Meredith Hooper is a fourth-generation Australian. After graduating in history from the University of Adelaide, she continued her postgraduate studies at Oxford. Her commitment to the history of Australia has remained constant over a period of many years. She has written eleven books for young readers, ranging from Boeing 747s to American history, from Australian explorers to everyday inventions. She now lives in London, with her English husband and three children. Susanne de B. Ferrier was born in Melbourne. She began to draw when she was two years old, on the walls of her parent's dinning-room. None of her antecedents arrived with the First Fleet, but she has been led to believe that she is distantly related by marriage to a policeman who was once sent in pursuit of the bushranger Ned Kelly.