The Singing Line: Tracking the Australian Adventures of My Intrepid Victorian Ancestors - Hardcover

Thomson, Alice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385490593 ISBN 13: 9780385490597

Publisher: Doubleday, 1999

Synopsis

A popular political columnist chronicles the journey of her great-great-grandparents from England to Australia to lay a telegraph line across the continent, and relates her own adventures in researching their story.

About this title

About the Author

Alice Thomson is associate editor, columnist, and interviewer for the Daily Telegraph. Born in 1967, she is also restaurant critic for The Spectator. She was named Alice after her great-great-grandmother Alice Todd, for whom Alice Springs, Australia, is also named.

From the Inside Flap

rue-life romantic adventure about a pair of young British couples--one hundred fifty years apart--braving the exotic rigors of the Australian Outback

The Singing Line is a wondrous narrative that combines the historical adventure of Longitude or Endurance with the keen insights and rambling rhythms of Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence.

One hundred sixty years ago, Charles Todd, an impecunious astronomer's assistant, was sitting in his prosperous relatives' drawing room in Oxford, England, telling them of his dreams. He wished to go to South Australia and seek his fortune in the wild colony as Government Astronomer and Superintendent of Telegraphs. What he did not mention was that he also intended to string a telegraph wire--"the singing line"--across the brutal Australian Outback, which no human had ever even crossed before. Charles despaired of only one thing: finding a wife willing to brav

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385490593
• ISBN 13: 9780385490597
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 292