As a graphic and vigorous writer, one who deals with his subject in an earnest manner, William Howitt requires no eulogy from the pen of any critic. His present work is the best and most comprehensive which has yet appeared on the countries it treats of. The author’s personal knowledge of several of the colonies, and the possession of documents not yet given to the public, have achieved for his work greater accuracy than would otherwise have been the case.
Guardian, Sept. 1, 1865.
The two handsome volumes before us, are really standard, useful works, and in some respects exhaustive of their subject. There are, we imagine, few, if any, points of information for which the intending emigrant, the settler, or the student need search this history in vain. The maps are clearly and accurately drawn, and are founded on the most recent discoveries, with which Mr. Howitt has made himself fully acquainted. The whole subject is well handled, but perhaps Australia with the greatest fullness and success, as presenting scenes of danger and of wild romance, of heroic daring and devoted deaths, such as few countries have to show.
Daily News, June 5, 1865.
The author of these volumes has well qualified himself to write upon the subject to which they are devoted. He has had a personal acquaintance with the country, and written a delightful book about it: he has had access to all the sources of information in the possession of both the colonial and home government, and the better half of his heart has been long given to the great southern land, upon which he has bestowed two noble sons. One of Mr. Howitt’s sons perished in an attempt to explore the interior of New Zealand; the other still lives, and has had the triumph of discovering the remains of poor Burke and Wills, who perished in the centre of Australia on their return after having traversed the continent. The history of this remarkable, and in many respects, anomalous land, could not have fallen into better hands. It is a work which engages Mr. William Howitt’s affections as well as his very great talents, and with his long practised pen the reader may be sure that the interest of the subject is not diminished by him.
The Morning Herald, April 25, 1865.
The title page of this book rather startles us at first, by the very magnitude of its subject, being no less than a chronicle of three hundred years of discovery. But Mr. Howitt is an old and able hand at condensing, and is able to give us an excellent summary of all that is really worth knowing.
The Globe, May 29, 1865.
The peculiar fitness of the writer for his task—his “labour of love,” as he himself styles it—need hardly be dilated on. His long residence in the country, the country as distinguished from the town—the services and discoveries of his son Alfred, who brought back the remains of Burke and Wills for honourable burial, and the loss of his youngest son, Charlton, in the work of exploration and improvement in New Zealand, add a personal and family interest to that of the mere encyclopædias of other men’s labours.
Standard, April 25, 1865.