As Australia has had so few large earthquakes, it is not surprising that books about those earthquakes are hard to find. This work by Tom Dyster, a keen local historian, covers in considerable detail the four most important South Australian earthquakes (1883, 1897, 1902, 1954) which have all affected Adelaide, the State's capital and major population centre, but until now it has not been freely available for either the public or seismologists to conveniently get a copy. For this reason MESA sought Tom's permission to release it as a report book. This will allow wider circulation and enable many people curious about earthquakes to read some local stories for themselves. Seismologists have been debating ways of measuring earthquake magnitudes for many years, and are refining resultant scales and terminology. Some aspects of the science are difficult for the untutored layman to comprehend without thorough study. It is understandable, therefore, that in this book there are some errors and inaccuracies from a seismological point of view, and at certain places in the text, particularly with the seismic magnitudes given in the introduction, one can see evidence of cases where seismologists have changed their minds. It was decided, however, to make the work available as it stands. There is simply no other source where one can find so many detailed reports, covering such a wide area, for these earthquakes. The effects of the earthquakes reported in this book have been mapped scientifically, sometimes more than once. These isoseismal maps have been reproduced in appendix A, along with the commonly used intensity scale. Readers may like to make their own judgements as to whether the Kerr Grant map (1956) or the Malpas map (1991) seems most appropriate to the stories of the 1954 quake, or whether the map of the 1897 quake has underestimated the effects in Adelaide, and needs to be reviewed and redrawn. Very few photos exist of the effects of the 1897 and 1902 earthquakes. Most of the known ones have been included in appendix B, along with a few selected photos of the 1954 earthquake.