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Gaunt, weather-worn Louis De Rougemont arrives in London in 1898 with a sensational story to tell.
He declares he is a French adventurer who has survived shipwreck and lived for nearly thirty years as king of an Aboriginal tribe in remote north-west Australia. Audiences across Britain and around the world are mesmerised by revelations of fabulous creatures and near biblical feats.
De Rougemont achieves instant celebrity and wins the endorsement of the leading scientific authorities of the day, but his stories - and identity are soon called into question. A fierce battle erupts in the press as newspaper editors desperately seek a scoop.
Who is this intriguing man? Modern Crusoe or mythmaker? Castaway or crank? The world is divided by De Rougemont's remarkable tale.
In The Fabulist, Rod Howard vividly recounts one of Australian history's most extraordinary, entertaining and controversial stories - the life of adventurer and seer Louis De Rougemont.
[RANDOM HOUSE]
THE FABULIST
A FORGER'S TALE
Delve into the many lives of Henry Savery, Australia's first novelist, described by Tom Keneally as 'a man whose own story is as picaresque as anything inside the covers of the novel'.
Born to fortune but spurned by fate, a single act of folly launches young Henry into an extraordinary spiral of calamity.
Banished to the end of the earth, bankrupt and betrayed, denied even the sanctuary of death, he surveys the gothic ruins of his past from an empty Hobart Town gaol cell and begins pouring out the story of his tortured journey - conjuring a thinly veiled autobiography that will become Australia's first published novel.
Rod Howard's rollercoaster tale - epic in scale and rich in historical insight - is the untold story of a life cruelled by misjudgement and misfortune, and the educated felon who played a part in the birth of Australia's free press.
[ARCADE BOOKS]
A Prime Minister once observed that 'more people in Australia know the lyrics to the Vegemite jingle than the national anthem'
Today more than 22 million jars of Vegemite are sold each year, but when the salty black paste was first produced in 1923 the public wasn't interested. In fact, it took another fifteen years before Australians embraced it.
Written with the inventor's grandson, The Man Who Invented Vegemite spans the Depression and two world wars, exploring the evolution of modern Australia and the quiet achievements, and tragedies, of one man.
[ALLEN & UNWIN]
THE MAN WHO INVENTED VEGEMITE
(WITH JAMIE CALLISTER)
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