Peter FitzSimons

Mutiny on the Bounty by Peter FitzSimons is an enthralling retelling of one of history's most dramatic nautical adventures. The book delves deep into the legendary mutiny that took place on HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, in the idyllic waters of the South Pacific. FitzSimons, known for his meticulous research and captivating storytelling, transports readers to a world of...

On 25 April 1915, Allied forces made a bold and fateful landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula, a strategically critical locale in present-day Turkey. Their mission was clear: to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. However, after eight gruelling months of intense combat, the campaign ended in failure. Despite this, the...

Batavia by Peter FitzSimons brings to life one of the greatest and most harrowing stories in Australia's history. Set in 1629, the narrative follows the maiden voyage of the Dutch East India Company’s flagship, the Batavia, as it travels from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies. Laden with the greatest treasure to leave Holland, the ship encounters an unforeseen disaster...

The iconic Australian exploration story - brought to life by Peter FitzSimons, Australia's storyteller. 'They have left here today!' he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left...

Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy young lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become. Albert 'Bert' Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. A month and a half later, Bert enlisted in the Australian Imperial...

The extraordinary, must-read story of the brave, bold Hubert Wilkins - Australia's most adventurous explorer, naturalist, photographer, war hero, aviator, spy and daredevil - brought to life by Australia's greatest storyteller. Sir Hubert Wilkins is one of the most remarkable Australians who ever lived. The son of pioneer pastoralists in South Australia, Hubert studied engineering before moving on to photography,...

The incredible true story of one of the most extraordinary and inspirational prison breaks in Australian history. New York, 1874. Members of the Clan-na-Gael—agitators for Irish freedom from the English yoke—hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote prison in the British Empire, Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale...

From the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia's deadliest Vietnam War battle. 4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious. 5.01 pm: Enemy ... penetrating both flanks and to north and south. 5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees. It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey...

The name Captain James Cook is one of the most recognisable in Australian history - an almost mythic figure who is often discussed, celebrated, reviled and debated. But who was the real James Cook? This Yorkshire farm boy would go on to become the foremost mariner, navigator and cartographer of his era, and to personally map a third of the...

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero? Most Australians have heard of the Boer War and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. But Morant was a complicated man. Born in England and immigrating to Queensland in 1883, he...

Our heroes can come from the most ordinary of places. As a shy lad growing up in country Victoria, no one in the district had any idea the man Albert Jacka would become. Albert 'Bert' Jacka was 21 when Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914. Bert soon enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and the young private was...

The Battle of Le Hamel on 4 July 1918 was an Allied triumph, and strategically very important in the closing stages of WWI. A largely Australian force, commanded by the brilliant Sir John Monash, fought what has been described as the first modern battle — where infantry, tanks, artillery and planes operated together as a coordinated force. Monash planned every...

For Australians, Kokoda is the iconic battle of World War II, yet few people know just what happened - and just what our troops achieved. Now, bestselling author Peter FitzSimons tells the Kokoda story in a gripping, moving story for all Australians. Conditions on the track were hellish - rain was constant, the terrain close to inhospitable, food and ammunition...

On 31st October 1917, as the day's light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged against their enemy. Eight hundred men and horses galloped four miles across open country, towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns of the Turks occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba. What happened in the next hour changed the course of history. This brave battle and...

From the bestselling author of Kokoda and Gallipoli comes the epic story of Australia's deadliest Vietnam War battle. 4.31 pm: Enemy [on] left flank. Could be serious. 5.01 pm: Enemy ... penetrating both flanks and to north and south. 5.02: Running short of ammo. Require drop through trees. It was the afternoon of 18 August 1966, hot, humid with grey...

The epic story of the Boer War and Harry 'Breaker' Morant: drover, horseman, bush poet - murderer or hero? Most Australians have heard of the Boer War and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. But Morant was a complicated man. Born in England and immigrating to Queensland in 1883, he...

Kokoda, 1942. In the muddy, treacherous mountains of Papua New Guinea, a small force of young Australian soldiers—some of them still teenagers—are up against highly trained, experienced Japanese troops. Many believed that the all-conquering Imperial Japanese Army was unstoppable. But this is the story of how these brave young Aussies faced some of the world's best soldiers on a narrow,...

In the Trenches of Hell On 19 July 1916, 7,000 Australian soldiers—in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front—attacked entrenched German positions at Fromelles in northern France. By the next day, there were over 5,500 casualties, including nearly 2,000 dead—a bloodbath that the Australian War Memorial describes as 'the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history.'...

The must-read story of the boy from Brisbane who became a wartime hero and aviation trailblazer. In an action-packed life, the indomitable 'Smithy' went from fighting as a soldier amid the carnage of Gallipoli and the Western Front to taking to the skies against the likes of the Red Baron—for which he won the Military Cross for gallantry—before becoming the...

History comes to life with Peter FitzSimons. The National Bestseller Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers' ploughs. Historians still disagree over virtually every...

The definitive account of when Australia's famed Rats of Tobruk took on General Erwin Rommel, The Desert Fox. The classic story of 1941's Battle of Tobruk, in which more than 15,000 Australian troops—backed by British artillery—fought in excruciating desert heat through eight long months, against Rommel's formidable Afrika Korps. During the dark heart of World War II, when Hitler turned...

The gripping true story of the woman who became the Gestapo's most wanted spy In the early 1930s, Nancy Wake was a young woman enjoying a bohemian life in Paris. By the end of the Second World War, she was the Gestapo's most wanted person. As a naïve, young journalist, Nancy Wake witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in...

History comes to life with Peter FitzSimons in the story of Australia’s most famous polar explorer and the giants from the heroic age of polar exploration: Scott, Amundsen, and Shackleton. Sir Douglas Mawson, born in 1882 and knighted in 1914, remains Australia's greatest Antarctic explorer. On 2 December 1911, his Australasian Antarctic Expedition left Hobart to explore the virgin frozen...

It's early 1918, and after four brutal years, the fate of the Great War hangs in the balance. On the one hand, the fact that Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks have seized power in Russia—immediately suing for peace with Germany—means that no fewer than one million of the Kaiser's soldiers can now be transferred from there to the Western Front....

In the Trenches of Hell On 19 July 1916, 7000 Australian soldiers— in the first major action of the AIF on the Western Front— attacked entrenched German positions at Fromelles in northern France. By the next day, there were over 5500 casualties, including nearly 2000 dead— a bloodbath that the Australian War Memorial describes as 'the worst 24 hours in...

Eureka: The Unfinished Revolution brings history to life with Peter FitzSimons. In 1854, Victorian miners fought a deadly battle under the flag of the Southern Cross at the Eureka Stockade. Though brief and doomed to fail, the battle is legend in both our history and in the Australian mind. Henry Lawson wrote poems about it, its symbolic flag is still...

The extraordinary story of the heroic doctor whose courage and leadership were a lifeline for thousands of Australian prisoners-of-war on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway of World War II - brilliantly told by Australia's favourite storyteller, Peter FitzSimons In September 1939, young Australian surgeon Edward 'Weary' Dunlop was working in London when the dogs of war were unleashed. Signing up, he...

On a sacred site on the land of the Gadigal people, Tubowgule, a place of gathering and storytelling for over 60,000 years, now sits the Sydney Opera House. It is a breathtaking building recognised around the world as a symbol of modern Australia. Along with the Taj Mahal and other World Heritage sites, it is celebrated for its architectural grandeur...

On 31st October 1917, as the day's light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged against their enemy. Eight hundred men and horses galloped four miles across open country, towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns of the Turks occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba. What happened in the next hour changed the course of history. This brave battle and...

The epic true story of George Mallory and Edmund Hillary and the quest to be the first to conquer Everest. A captivating story of adventure, daring, despair and triumph from Australia's favourite storyteller. Last century, two men, thirty years apart, set out to become the first to conquer the highest point in the world. Their names are synonymous with adventure...

It's early 1918, and after four brutal years, the fate of the Great War hangs in the balance. On the one hand, the fact that Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks have seized power in Russia—immediately suing for peace with Germany—means that no fewer than one million of the Kaiser's soldiers can now be transferred from there to the Western Front....

You gotta love this country when an AFL legend takes his mum instead of his girlfriend to the Brownlow, when an Australian cricket captain joins a bunch of fourteen-year-olds for a bit of street cricket, when a bloke wins the Australian Marbles Championship after being reunited with the tom-bowlers his brother threw away forty years ago, and when the dry...

The mutiny on HMS Bounty, in the South Pacific on 28 April 1789, is one of history's truly great stories—a tale of human drama, intrigue, and adventure of the highest order—and in the hands of Peter FitzSimons, it comes to life as never before. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti and take them to the...

The extraordinary story of the heroic doctor whose courage and leadership were a lifeline for thousands of Australian prisoners-of-war on the infamous Thai-Burma Railway of World War II - brilliantly told by Australia's favourite storyteller, Peter FitzSimons. In September 1939, young Australian surgeon Edward 'Weary' Dunlop was working in London when the dogs of war were unleashed. Signing up, he...

"They have left here today!" he calls to the others. When King puts his hand down above the ashes of the fire, it is to find it still hot. There is even a tiny flame flickering from the end of one log. They must have left just hours ago. MELBOURNE, 20 AUGUST 1860. In an ambitious quest to be the...