This is the life story of a city, written mainly by its own citizens as eyewitnesses - who comments and recollections still surviving in letters, journals, reports and newspaper files, have a freshness and a spontaneity no formal history can attain. A remarkable eyewitness history of Melbourne's first 150 years. The book is divided into five sections, each with an introduction to set the documents in their context and to link them into a coherent story, illustrated with sixty-three reproductions of early prints and photographs, including four four-colour lithographs from Charles Troedel's Melbourne Album.