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National Library of Australia, January 2006
On the cover this month

Unknown maker
Race to the Gold Diggings of Australia
London, 1855
board game: wooden box with sliding pictorial lid (shown here);
14.0 x 19.5 x 4.5 cm (contains hand-coloured lithograph mounted on linen with lead ships, rule sheet, dice and other pieces)
Children’s Literature Research Collection, State Library of South Australia

 

A Race to the Gold Diggings in Australia is the earliest known board game devoted to Australia. In the game, children raced each other to Port Phillip, in Victoria, bound for the goldfields where, according to the game, there were nuggets the size of boulders. The implication was clear:  Australia was a land of huge opportunity. This is one of more than 170 items gathered from Australia’s state and territory libraries which, along with works from the National Library’s Collection, make up the major exhibition National Treasures from Australia’s Great Libraries, which will travel around Australia and is currently at the National Library (until 1 February).

January 2006 Volume XVI Number 4

TRAVELLING TREASURES: HINTS FOR THE UNWARY

 

Nat Williams reveals the complex process of creating the National Treasures from Australia’s Great Libraries exhibition

BRISBANE THE FAIR’ AND OTHER QUEENSLAND POSTINGS
  Michele Helmrich explores the compelling wartime diaries of artist Donald Friend
AIMING FOR THE HEART
 

Barry York describes how Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, shocked the American public and forced changes in legislation

CONNECTING ASIA AND AUSTRALIA
 

Andrew Gosling examines the influence of the Theosophical Society’s teachings

OUR WOMAN IN SYDNEY

Nicola Walker discusses the Times Literary Supplement’s past and its future at Murdoch’s Fortress Wapping

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