This book was first published in 1984 as Our Side of the Country, and each subsequent edition has been revised and updated. There are now eighteen chapters in place of the original fourteen. To this edition – the second under the title of A History of Victoria – have been added short sections on those early voyagers, Captain James Cook and the unknown captain of the mysterious ‘mahogany ship’; on John Batman and his treaty with local Aboriginal people; the notable Jewish contribution to Melbourne; the busy Bonegilla post-war migrant camp when it was Victoria's back porch; and the remarkable survival of one of the world's largest network of street trams. Larger sections have been added on the changing attitudes to wildlife and climate; on the long recent drought and the 2009 bushfires; and the rapid expansion of Melbourne and its suburbs and provincial cities since the late 1990s. In earlier chapters, some errors have been erased and the interpretation fine-tuned. In revising the book I gained help from Dr Anna Blainey Warner, Dr Peter Yule, Tim Warner and Alistair Urquhart and the files of his valuable Letter from Melbourne.

The new edition carries more than forty illustrations, many of which come from the camera of John R. Reid. A Melbourne architect, for half a century he has photographed many significant Victorian landscapes, buildings and events. The earlier photographs come through the courtesy of the University of Melbourne Archives, the pictures collection of the State Library of Victoria and Newspix of News Limited. I thank all who have helped to design, edit and illustrate this latest edition, and especially Philippa Whishaw, Jodie Fitzsimmons and Lily Keil of the Cambridge University Press's office in Melbourne. The new and revised maps in A History of Victoria were drawn by Tony Fankhauser.