Books

Books by C.J. Ison

A Treacherous Coast tells the fascinating stories of ten shipwrecks and maritime disasters to occur off the Queensland coast.  They include: the Endeavour – 1770; the Caledonia – 1831; the Stirling Castle – 1836; the Peruvian – 1846; the Countess of Minto – 1851; the Sapphire – 1859; the Maria – 1872; the Gothenburg – 1875; the Quetta – 1890; and the Orete – 1918.

Whether through gritty determination, personal fortitude, or a measure of good luck many people lived to tell their story.    A Treacherous Coast draws heavily on the first-hand accounts left by those who survived their ordeals.

Available as a paperback, or Kindle eBook through Amazon.com or Amazon.com.au

COMING SOON

Bolters chronicles Australia’s most daring convict escapes. More than 1 in 100 prisoners sent out to the colonies took a look at the place and decided they wanted no part of it. Over thirty escapes are covered in detail drawing on colonial newspapers, official reports and journals left by the runaways. In 1791 William and Mary Bryant made an extraordinary voyage from Sydney to Timor in a cutter stolen from Governor Phillip. The Cyprus, was seized in Van Diemen’s Land in 1829 and sailed to Japan before being sunk off the coast of China. In 1834 the Frederick was sailed across the Pacific to South America by the very prisoners who built her at Macquarie Harbour. And, in 1876 the American whaler Catalpa took away six Irish political prisoners languishing in Fremantle Prison. In 1803 William Buckley bolted from the short-lived penal settlement at Port Phillip Bay and spent the next 32 years living with the local Aboriginal people. Then there was the notorious cannibal, Alexander Pearce who feasted on his travelling companions after escaping from Sarah Island in Van Diemen’s Land in 1822. These more familiar chapters in Australia’s history are interspersed with many lesser-known but no less fascinating attempts by convicts to regain their liberty.