Harry Readford alias Captain Starlight
Harry Readford alias Captain Starlight

Author: John Morrison

Publisher: Boolarong Press

Published: 2013-12-01

Total Pages: 10

ISBN-13: 1922109851

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The story of Harry Readford, born in 1841 on the frontier of the infant colony of New South Wales, who became a proficient bushman, stockman, drover, explorer, pioneer and above all, a renowned cattle duffer, has passed into Australian folklore. The pivotal event in the story was the famous cattle theft in 1870, of 1200 head from the Longreach area of Central Queensland, and droving them nearly 1600 kilometres through virtually unexplored desert country deep into South Australia. This feat, and the subsequent “infamous” trial at the Roma courthouse in 1873, was portrayed in Rolf Boldrewood’s classic novel Robbery Under Arms. Boldrewood created the mythical Captain Starlight, so Harry Readford, already a legend in his own lifetime, became the myth – and rode into history. This book incorporates a complete series of landscape, portrait and narrative paintings, drawings, photographs, maps and text, woven around a theme of major historical and cultural importance, which was signifi cant then and is now.

Captain Starlight
Captain Starlight

Author: Jane Smith

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-08-05

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 1922132721

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The fifth book in the series features the two men known as "Captain Starlight". Both were bushrangers who travelled widely across the country in the second half of the 19th Century, and although their backgrounds and their crimes differed greatly, they are linked by their connection with a character from a novel. Frank Pearson was the first "Starlight who burst onto the scene in 1868, when he abandoned his practice as a doctor, stole a horse and took off on a bushranging spree that ended in a shoot out and the death of a policeman. Pearson was a very talented man: intelligent, well educated and well read, and a clever artist and composer. He was also a pathological liar with no moral compass whatsoever. He had so many aliases that we don't even know what his real name was. The other was Henry Readford, whose stunning theft of 1000 cattle was the inspiration for the fictional character "Captain Starlight" in Rolf Boldrewoods novel Robbery Under Arms.

Mad Dogs and Thunderbolts
Mad Dogs and Thunderbolts

Author: Ben Pobjie

Publisher: Affirm Press

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1925972348

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ned Kelly's tin helmet looms large over Australia's bushranging past, but what about all the unsung outlaws of the Australian bush? What about Black Caesar, who escaped his tyrannous British overlords four times and indeed invented the great Australian tradition of bushranging? Or Mad Dog Morgan who set out to write his name in blood on history's ledger, the dynamic Captain Thunderbolt and his loyal wife Mary Ann Bugg, bushranging's greatest queen, and Matthew Brady, the gentleman bushranger, who showed us all the cilivised side of armed robbery? In Mad Dogs and Thunderbolts Ben Pobjie celebrates the derring-do and revolutionary passion of all the wild colonial boys and girls who raided our towns and stole our hearts, all while wearing sensible headgear.

The Last Bushrangers
The Last Bushrangers

Author: John Morrison

Publisher: Boolarong Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 31

ISBN-13: 1925522733

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is John Morrison’s latest illustrated book in his bushranger series. Read about the exploits of these dashing young men, their poor choices in life and their tragic outcome. John has drawn from multiple sources of historic evidence and added an overlay of folklore, legend and local knowledge. The dramatic images of the landscapes, characters and action round out the text and complete the story of the last great bushrangers – Pat and Jim Kenniff.