Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
A Fortunate Life : Fremantle Press Treasures Edition  - A. B. Facey

A Fortunate Life

Fremantle Press Treasures Edition

By: A. B. Facey

Hardcover | 29 October 2018

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $35.00

$28.75

18%OFF

or 4 interest-free payments of $7.19 with

In Stock and Ships in 1-2 business days
First sent to work at the age of eight, Facey lived the rough frontier life of a labourer, farmer and jackaroo, becoming lost and then being rescued by Indigenous trackers, then gaining a hard-won literacy. He survived Gallipoli, raised a family through the Depression, lost a son in the Second World War, and met his beloved Evelyn, with whom he shared nearly sixty years of marriage. Despite enduring unimaginable hardships, Facey always saw his life as a fortunate one.

About the Author

A.B. Facey was born in 1894 and grew up on the Kalgoorlie goldfields and in the wheatbelt of Western Australia. His father died before he was two and he was deserted by his mother soon afterwards. He was looked after by his grandmother until he was eight years old, when he went out to work. His many jobs included droving, hammering spikes on the railway line from Merredin to Wickepin and boxing in a travelling troupe. He was in the Eleventh Battalion at the Gallipoli landing; after the war, he became a farmer under the Soldier Settlement Scheme but was forced off the land during the Depression.

He joined the tramways and was active in the Tramways Union. A.B. Facey, who had no formal education, taught himself to read and write. He made the first notes on his life soon after World War I, and filled notebooks with his accounts of his experiences. Finally, on his children?s urging, he submitted the handwritten manuscript to the Press. He died in 1982, nine months after A Fortunate Life had been published to wide acclaim.
Industry Reviews
Banjo Award for Australian Literature, (Winner 1981). NSW State Literary Award, (Winner 1981). Douglas Stewart Prize (Winner, 1981)

More in True Stories on Discovery, History & Science

Australia's Most Unbelievable True Stories - Jim Haynes

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Ernest Rutherford and the Birth of Modern Physics - Matthew Wright
First Knowledges Country : Future Fire, Future Farming - Bruce Pascoe
Dead Centre : True Crime - Robin Bowles

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance : A True Story - Banjo Woorunmurra
Venom : The heroic search for Australia's deadliest snake - Brendan James Murray
The Travels : Penguin Classics - Marco Polo
A New Voyage Round the World - William Dampier

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
Flinders : The Man Who Mapped Australia - Rob Mundle

RRP $22.99

$20.75

10%
OFF
South : The Endurance Expedition : Popular Penguins - Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
The Disappearing Act : The Impossible Case of MH370 - Florence de Changy