ASBS Newsletter – Book Review

Do Not Yield to Despair
Frank Hugh Hann's Exploration Diaries in the Arid Interior of Australia 1895-1908

Compiled and edited by Mike Donaldson and Ian Elliot.

(From ASBS Newsletter Number 99, June 1999)

Hesperian Press,
P.O. Box 317, Victoria Park, W.A. 6100 (1998).
xi + 426 pp.
ISBN 0 85905 226 5. Price $A80.00

Also from Hesperian Press we have this compilation of the diaries of Frank Hann (1845-1921), a pastoralist, prospector and bushman who explored across northern Australia from Lawn Hill Station, Queensland, to Halls Creek, Western Australia, in 1896; east of the Pilbara and the west Kimberley in 1897-1898; and large tracts of inland Western Australia from 1901 to 1908, including expeditions as far east as Oodnadatta, South Australia. Among his discoveries were the Rudall River and Lake Disappointment, Isdell and Charnley Rivers. In all he named more than 500 geographical features, and is himself commemorated in such names as the Hann River, Mount Hann and Frank Hann National Park. Although not a major botanical collector, Hann was instrumental in making known outback Western Australia.

Reviewer: Alex George