Prince of My Country

by Donald Stuart

Georgian House, 1974, [First Edition], hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, dustjacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing, bumping, and creasing to edges and corners (see photographs)

“’It’s only the luckiest of us that ever hear the stars’.  These words from his father are among Davey Redman’s first memories.  Born early this century in the bush of Australia’s north west, halfway between Boodalyerrie and where the Davis junctions with the Oakover, Davey is the son of a white father and a black mother.  His world grows rapidly beyond the box where he sleeps as a baby, beyond the two rooms where his family lives on the station where his father works, beyond the woolshed and station yard.  When his father picks up his cheque and does prospecting, Davey is ready to sit behind his mother on her horse and go too.  Soon they find good gold country, and this success enables Davey’s father and his partner to start a cattle station of their own named Karrawolgan for Davey’s mother.  Here Davey learns that necessary skills of the bushman, and helps build up a fine station, producing cattle the equal of any in the West.  He is happy there but his father realizes he needs more than the family can give him and when he is fourteen he is sent to work on a larger station some days ride away.  There he discovers the love of a woman; he learns the art of the teamster; the yarns by the fire at the night camp; this in turn helps him to understand and take a pride in his own heritage.”