In Matthew Flinders: The Man behind the Map Gillian Dooley looks to the primary sources to discover Flinders as a friend; a son, a brother, a father and a husband; as a writer, a researcher, a reader, and a musician - and above all as a romantic scientist.
Born at the end of the Age of Enlightenment and growing up as Romanticism took hold of European culture, Matthew Flinders was the embodiment of these seemingly irreconcilable movements. His achievements as a navigator and leader are impressive, but he was much more than an action hero, idolised by generations of admirers.
In Matthew Flinders: The Man behind the Map Gillian Dooley looks to the primary sources to discover Flinders as a friend; a son, a brother, a father and a husband; as a writer, a researcher, a reader, and a musician - and above all as a romantic scientist.
Gillian Dooley is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Flinders University. She is the co-editor of Matthew Flinders' Private Journal (2005), of the 2019 Wakefield Press anthology The First Wave: Exploring Early Coastal Contact History in Australia (with Danielle Clode), and (with Philippa Sandall) of Trim: The Cartographer's Cat (2019), a new authoritative edition of Flinders' Biographical Tribute. She also writes on authors including Jane Austen and Iris Murdoch.