Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-275) and index.

Part 1: The Years of Discovery: 1. The voyage out: a pact is made -- 2. The Tom Thumb adventures -- 3. The discovery of Bass Strait -- 4. The circumnavigation of Van Diemen's Land -- 5. The pact is broken -- 6. The missing rivers of New South Wales ---- Part 2: New Enterprises, New Loves: 7. Flinders and Bass in London -- 8. Matthew, Ann and Sir Joseph Banks ---- Part 3: Great Expectations: 9. The Investigator. travelling in good company -- 10. The Unknown Southern Coast -- 11. Bass at Port Jackson -- 12. Flinders at Port Jackson -- 13. Queensland coast and the Great Barrier Reef -- 14. 'My Pork hunting Voyage No. 1' ---- Part 4: The Years of Endurance: 15. 'Investigator is decayed': Flinders doubts his gift -- 16.Inretreat -- 17. 'Let but our next trip go well and all will be well' -- 18. 'A new Investigator may come' -- 19. Shipwreck ---- Part 5: Endgame: 10. Flinders on Ile de France -- 21. Guest of Napoleon -- 22. A new lease of life.

'Australian history ... does not read like history', Mark Twain complained in 1897, 'but like the most beautiful lies ... It is full of surprises and adventures, incongruities, and contradictions, and incredibilities; but they are all true, they all happened.' He might have been thinking of Matthew Flinders and George Bass, two obscure young men from Lincolnshire, who had arrived in Sydney in 1795 determined to achieve greatness. Flinders wanted to be an explorer 'second only to Cook', Bass a naturalist, another Sir Joseph Banks, and a rich Sydney trader. For eight years these two pursued their destiny. Their voyages changed the map of Australia, and Flinders gave it its name. They were ready for even greater ventures. And then it was all over. Bass had set out on a voyage he would never finish. His life ended when he was thirty-two years old. Flinders was standing bareheaded and bedraggled before the governor of Ile de France (Mauritius), who told him that his claim to be the commander of a great expedition of discovery was frankly incredible, all lies; he was thrust into prison as a spy and detained for six and a half years. His career as an explorer ended when he was twenty-nine years old. But a strange new adventure was just beginning ...

2017 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.