A far microcosm : building and architecture in Van Diemen’s Land and Tasmania 1803-1914

Launceston, Tas. : Fullers Bookshop with Foot and Playsted, 2015. Edition limited to 500 copies. Four volumes, small quarto, pictorial laminated card covers, illustrated, in pictorial slipcase.

“A Far Microcosm is a detailed history to 1914 of Tasmania’s architecture, its influences, its construction, and the adaption of forms and building methods to suit the climate and the materials available. From the grand house to the common serviceable dwelling, every style and size is explained in accurate detail, with a full explanation of architectural terms and many illustrations so that the reader will understand the breadth and depth of the buildings, some lost, that provide evidence of the lasting enthusiasm, cleverness and craft from before settlement until the beginning of the first world war.

While these volumes are expansive and comprehensive the author, Doctor Ratcliff, has written an easily understandable text backed by years of interest in the subject. Many readers may remember his witty and educative weekly column in the local press. Like those, “A Far Microcosm” is full of anecdote and is really quite good fun to read while also being an enlightening look at Tasmanian history.

This collection of four volumes is the culmination of a lifetime’s work, both written and illustrative and has come to be the definitive collection that it is by Doctor’s sheer enthusiasm for the architecture he walks through every day. A Far Microcosm is unique: it is by its very nature a project rare in the twenty first century and it will be a major collectable publication.” (Publisher).