Author(s): Colin Dyer

Australian Non fiction

The early years of Sydney were witnessed by seven expeditions of French exploration between 1788 and 1831. These expeditions spent well over a year in the new town of Sydney meeting most of its leading citizens and visiting its expanding environs. The French explorers, including Freycinet, Laperouse and Bougainville, were received and entertained by Sydney's dignitaries. Their revealing accounts present intimate details of everyday lives at all levels of society, from the Governors' parties to "the sickening spectacle" (as de Bougainville saw it) of convicts on the treadmills in Sydney's penitentiary. The French Explorers and Sydney contains previously unpublished translations of European experiences in the early colonial period.