serious book, Confessions of a Beachcomber, was misleading; he was no mere collector of trifling tales or a beachcomber in the nineteenth century tradition of a ship-wrecked sailor. Although the suggestion for the title came from the breaking up of a wreck on the coast many miles away which resulted in much debris drifting to the island. He worked hard on his plantation, and in its early days he found that work on a tropical island had its own difficulties. Once these were overcome he could get enough leisure to study the vegetable, bird and sea life of the island, and, the Aborigines before they were taken away and placed on a reservation. Visitors came and were made welcome by Banfield and his wife. Late life Banfield described Dunk Island as his "Isle of Dreams—this unkempt, unrestrained garden where the centuries gaze upon perpetual summer". He became ill towards the end of May 1923 and died on 2 June 1923 of peritonitis. His wife survived him, there were no children. He was buried under a cairn on Dunk Island. His grave and the cairn are now listed on the Queensland Heritage Register as the Banfield Memorial Reserve and Grave. References Margriet R. Bonnin, 'Banfield, Edmund James (1852–1923)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, MUP, 1979, pp 165–166 Further reading External links Works by Edmund James Banfield at Project Gutenberg Australia Edmund James Banfield – 100th anniversary of "My Tropic Isle" – John Oxley Library Blog, State Library of Queensland 1852 births 1923 deaths People from Ararat, Victoria Australian travel writers Australian journalists Australian naturalists English emigrants to Australia Deaths from peritonitis Journalists from Liverpool