Sydney Launch of The Poison of Polygamy with Guest Speaker Dr. Shirley Fitzgerald

This first book launch was a big day for all involved in the project to translate and republish The Poison of Polygamy, and it was a pleasure to celebrate it with so many attendees. The event took place on Friday 11th October 2019 at Gleebooks, Glebe, Sydney. Our guest speaker for the evening was well-known Sydney historian Dr. Shirley Fitzgerald, who spoke most enthusiastically about the novel and its significance: see the relevant post on The Poison of Polygamy Facebook page for a recording. Others who took to the stage to speak, besides myself as translator, were historian Dr. Michael Williams, who conceived of the project and supported it throughout, and the grandsons of author Wong Shee Ping Dr. Phillip Mar and Mr. Glenn Mar, who like other members of the Mar family in attendance had only recently learnt of the existence of a novel written by their illustrious forebear. This evening was also an opportunity to publicly thank Sydney University Press—represented by manager Susan Murray and our indefatigable editor Denise O’Dea—for what I feel was the large and laudable decision to take on the publication of such an unusual and significant lost work of early Australian fiction, despite all the publication challenges it posed, such as parallel bilingual text, and the inclusion of annotations and explanatory front and end matter, all of which add greatly to the final package in terms of its usefulness for different readerships and applications.