documents and despatches, skilfully arranged in the form of a diary. John Cobley has let the writers and observers of the time tell their story without footnotes or comments of his own, and the entries are for the most part first-hand accounts, written down not months or years later but as they occurred. This gives them a special intimacy and vitality. The story is of a near-starving colonystruggling to make something of life in the midst of almost unbelievable difficulties. Again and again we read of hunger, illness and death, of petty crime and floggings, of droughts, bushfires and floods. But these things are inseparable from any account of early Sydney, and in fact a great deal was being achieved. By the early 1790s the populations was increasing, and the town was beginning to take shape, and the boundries were widening as settlement spread from its beginnings at Sydney Cove and from the farming centre of Rose Hill. This book is a fine contribution to a series which is filling an important historical gap. Further volumes are planned up to the year 1803, when the Sydney Gazette, Australia's first newspaper, made its appearance. (Inside cover).