Hello Traces reader! Welcome back to another Friday Book Giveaway, thanks to our friends at Forty South! This week's spotlight book is "The Shape of Water: Imagined fragments from an elusive life: Sophia Degraves of Van Diemen's Land" written by Anne Blythe-Cooper.
Her husband was controversial. He was in the press, in the courts and in prison.
Her husband was charismatic, voluble and irrepressible. He survived shipwreck, ruin and slander. Her husband was an entrepreneur, industrialist and pioneer. We continue to drink his beer; we still attend his theatre. His legacy is concrete. His place in history is secure.
But this is not his story.
Sophia Degraves survives only as a silent register of birth and death. Nothing is known of her beyond the children she bore and the death she died. This catalogue says nothing of the privations and aspirations of an invisible colonial woman who built in flesh and blood what the men around her built with water and stone.
This is her story, written by imagining what was real.
To enter: Like this post, tag a friend and tell us in the comments section: "What is your favourite history/genealogy book you've read?
https://www.facebook.com/TracesMag/photos/a.262237540469159/5052386191454246/Entries close Monday 14 September 5pm AEST. Australian entrants only. Winner will be announced via Facebook on Wednesday 16 September.
Australian Competitions Club
