A small notebook unearthed at Mittagong rubbish tip, in the NSW Southern Highlands, and detailing a Sydney couple s real estate adventures is charming readers more than a century on.
Outwardly grubby and missing its cover, the notebook was donated to the State Library of NSW in 1984.
It sat among the bulging manuscript stacks in the library for decades until curator Margot Riley and a colleague stumbled across the rare gem while preparing for an event.
A page from the notebook, which sets out all the options for the Moore s future home.(State Library of NSW) I typed into the catalogue house construction and up popped this record about a notebook, Ms Riley, who wrote a blog post about the notebook earlier this week, said.
Dated 1748 and set in the French colony of Pondicherry, Arjun Rajendran writes about the second hanging of a convict in the titular poem of his latest collection,
One man: Two executions. When the noose breaks during the unfortunate incident, the priest orders the executioner to disregard this holy sign and hang the man whom divinity had spared. Such and many other incidences of bizarre nature are to be found in the Pondicherry of Rajendran’s musings, conjured against the backdrop of a province embroiled in the Carnatic wars.
The Private Diaries of Ananda Ranga Pillai which chronicle the events of 18