Ned's Corner on the Murray: A History

Australian History Local History Indigenous Studies Biography & Memoir True Stories Regional Australia Frontier History Rural & Agricultural History

Ned’s Corner on the Murray: A History is the only book-length account of the remote 45,000-hectare cattle run that sits at the junction of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. In this 2015 paperback Catherine King stitches together station diaries, Aboriginal oral history and rare river-boat records to show how one patch of Murray River flood-plain became a microcosm of Australian settlement: from the paddle-steamers and wool-scours of the 1850s, through the Ned Kelly-era bushranging routes that crossed the property, to the Mabo-era hand-back negotiations that finally recognised traditional owners. King keeps the narrative tight—only 180 pages—yet every chapter carries the authority of on-the-ground interviews and state-archive sleuthing, making it a perfect quick reference for family historians, river-travellers or teachers looking for a classroom case-study on frontier contact.

What makes this copy especially appealing to collectors is its immaculate reading condition: the pages are crisp, unmarked and tightly bound, with no ex-library stamps, inscriptions or dog-eared corners. The light shelf scuffs on the cover are the only evidence that it has ever been opened, so you get the content of a new book without the new-book price tag. Because the original print run was small and most copies never left the Mallee region, clean second-hand examples seldom surface online; when they do, they are snapped up by local-history buffs and Kelly enthusiasts alike.

For anyone tracing ancestors along the Murray, the book’s maps and appendices are gold. King lists every head-stockman, river-boat captain and Wiradjeri/Nyeri Nyeri family employed on the station between 1849 and 1999, cross-referenced to shipping manifests, birth registers and police correspondence. Even if your forebears never set foot on Ned’s Corner, the eyewitness accounts of floods, droughts, rabbit plagues and river red-gum logging give unparalleled colour to the stories you already have. Add it to your cart while it’s still available—once this pressing is gone, the next affordable copy may not appear for years.

Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.