The confessions of a beachcomber

One of the early seekers of an 'alternative life-style', Banfield, accompanied by his wife, retired from the complexities of town life for the 'careless quiet, the calm, the refreshment of the whole air, the tonic of the wide sea'. Leaving Townsville, they set out to try the 'simple life' on Dunk Island, an uninhabited island off the coast of northern Queensland. "The Confessions of a Beachcomber" is the description of life on a 'real tropic island, where Romance and Reality met and were blended'. Its publication, in 1908, caused a great stir; aroused by the freshness and vividness of the story, reviewers and readers cried out that they, too, wished to go 'a-Dunking', to share in the charms of the simple life. This is a 'classic of Australian natural history' - through Banfield's vigorous and enthusiastic account of the tropical scenery, plants, animals and Aboriginals of Dunk Island, runs a perceptive delight in this island 'far from the haunts of men'.