Lincoln's Place: The Story of an Australian Pioneer Farm

LINCOLN'S PLACE has overlooked Port Phillip Bay since Melbourne was no more than a township. Successive generations worked the land until civilisation'. like a creeping tide, encroached further and further upon a region once devoted to farming. Now Lincoln's Place dreams through the last few years remaining before it is swamped by development, in the same way that development has swamped so much of the surrounding Bellarine Peninsula.

Yet the continued existence of Lincoln's Place is far more than a quaint example of living history. It is 'A vindication of the act of living, a demonstration of fortitude and resolution and humanity.'

The story of Lincoln's Place carries the reader back to a world in which people lived closer to the earth. in harmony with the seasons and all grow ing things. Some of it is told through the memories of Mrs Lincoln, now in her eighties but still active around the farm. Other portions come to life through the old buildings, the old tools and vehicles once in everyday use, old artefacts, and the whole meaning and feeling of the farm as they are trans. lated by Colin Thiele. It is the story of a vigorous past and a hopeful present. It appeals to all of us because we all feel that, somehow, we should be living in this way: close-linked with the earth. independent of technology, freed from the despotism of 'progress.

And this is the message of the book.

That, even now, it is not too late for us to rediscover the contentment of the past, instead of striving for happiness in a mechanised society which demands more and more and returns less and less. In LINCOLN'S PLACE, the message is beautifully and convincingly conveyed in the prose of Colin Thiele and the paintings of Robert Ingpen.