Everything about English Passengers totally explained
English Passengers (ISBN 0-385-49744-X) is a
2000 historical novel written by
Matthew Kneale, which won that year's
Whitbread Book Award and was shortlisted for the
Booker Prize and the
Miles Franklin award. It is narrated by 20 different characters and tells the story of a
voyage to look for the
Garden of Eden and the rapid decline of an island’s
indigenous population.
Plot summary
In
1857, after their attempts to smuggle contraband goods land them with a heavy fine from the
British Customs, Captain Illiam Quillian Kewley and his crew of
Manx sailors are forced to offer their ship for charter. The vessel is quickly hired by a party of
Englishmen headed by an eccentric
Vicar, the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who believes that the Garden of Eden is located in
Tasmania and wants to mount an expedition there to find it. However, unbeknownst to the
clergyman, one of his fellow travellers has an entirely different reason for journeying to the island.
Dr Thomas Potter is a renowned
surgeon who is developing a
thesis on the races of man and hopes to find some interesting
specimens there.
Running parallel with this story, but starting some 30 or so years earlier, are the recollections of Peevay, one of Tasmania's
natives, who describes the devastating impact the white
settlers had on his people, and the
aborigines' struggle to adapt to the cultural changes which were forced on them.
Many of the chapters alternate between the two different time periods, but when the Manx ship eventually docks in Tasmania, both strands of the story are brought together for the book's conclusion.
Further Information
Get more info on 'English Passengers'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://english_passengers.totallyexplained.com">English Passengers Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
