According to Allsop, R. (2020), Blainey travelled to Queenstown in Tasmania just before his 21st birthday and wrote the book The Peaks of Lyell (1954), as a freelance historian. Blainey was fortunate that he was recommended to Sir Walter Bassett of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company to write the company history. Blainey was offered £16 per week as a freelancer, which was less than a labourer was paid, but bargained for a higher payment of £24 per week, to write the company’s history, the book being released over a year later.

Being one of just 36 books published in Australia in 1954, it was guaranteed to draw attention and is the only one still in print fifty years later. Blainey submitted his book for an MA and was awarded first-class honours, reversing the normal order of studying for a degree and then writing a book. As a freelancer, there was quite some time before he gained further work, but the success of his book meant other freelancing opportunities arose (pp. 41-49).

Blainey ended up as an academic, but returned to freelancing in the 1990s, writing six commissioned histories (Allsop, R (2020) p. 215). Blainey had found his freelancing
niche in writing Australian history and was now sought after for opinion pieces in Australian media (Allsop, R (2020) p. 219).

References: Allsop, R. (2020). Geoffrey Blainey : writer, historian, controversialist (1st ed.). Monash University Publishing.