''The Peaks of Lyell'' is a book by

Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. He is noted for having written authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including '' The Tyranny ...

, based on his

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

MA thesis originally published in 1954. It contains the history of the

Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was a Tasmanian mining company formed on 29 March 1893, most commonly referred to as ''Mount Lyell''. Mount Lyell was the dominant copper mining company of the West Coast from 1893 to 1994, and was based in ...

, and through association, Queenstown and further the

West Coast Tasmania The West Coast of Tasmania is mainly isolated rough country, associated with wilderness, mining and tourism. It served as the location of an early convict settlement in the early history of Van Diemen's Land, and contrasts sharply with the mor ...

. It is unique for this type of book in that it has gone to the sixth edition in 2000, and few company histories in Australia have achieved such continual publishing. Blainey was fortunate in being able to speak to older people about the history of the West Coast, some who had known Queenstown in its earliest years. The book gives an interesting overview from the materials and people Blainey was able to access in the early 1950s, and the omissions. Due to the nature of a company history, a number of items of Queenstown history did have alternative interpretations on events such as the 1912 North Mount Lyell Disaster, and there were residents of Queenstown living in the town as late as the 1970s who had stories that differed from the official company history. Significant characters from the West Coast Tasmania history such as Robert Carl Sticht and James Crotty amongst a longer list probably still deserve further work on their significance in West Coast and Tasmanian history, but the book has had significant "presence" in being in print for so long. Scholarship on some of the neglected aspects of West Coast and Queenstown history only emerged from the shadow of Blainey's work in the 2000s. In 1994, when the fifth edition was printed, the Mount Lyell company closed down, and most of the records held by the company were donated to the State Library of Tasmania. By the 2000s a sixth edition was published.

Publication history

* Blainey, Geoffrey. ''The Peaks of Lyell'', Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1954, 310pp. *''History of Mt. Lyell'' anuscript(M.A. Thesis), University of Melbourne, 1955, 328 leaves. * The first half of this history was presented as

's Master of Arts thesis. ** 2nd ed., Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1959, 310pp. ** 3rd ed., Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic.; London, 1967, 341pp. ** 4th ed., Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1978, 341pp. ** 5th ed., St. David's Park Publishing, Hobart, Tas., 1993, 370pp. *

Notes

1954 non-fiction books 20th-century history books Books about Australian history Books by Geoffrey Blainey Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Queenstown, Tasmania {{Australia-hist-book-stub

Publication history

See also

Notes