SOONTO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE The international bestseller, Booker Prize winner, and winner of the 2001 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book. Out of 19th century Australia rides a hero of his people and a man for all nations: Ned Kelly, the son of poor Irish immigrants, viewed by the authorities as a thief (especially of horses) and, as a cold-blooded killer. To the people, though, he was a patriot hounded unfairly by rich English landlords and their stooges. In the end, Kelly and his so-called gang (his younger brother and two friends) led a massive police manhunt on a wild goose chase that lasted twenty months, in which Ned’s talents as a bushman were augmented by bank robberies and the support of nearly everyone not in a uniform. His one demand – for which he would have surrendered himself was his jailed mother’s freedom. Executed by hanging more than a century ago, speaking as if from the grave, Kelly still resonates as the most potent legend in the land down under.
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers’ ploughs. Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy’s brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an Australian republican channelling the spirit of Eureka? Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of this nation’s history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly’s early days in Beveridge, Victoria, in the mid-1800s, to the Felons’ Apprehension Act, which made it possible for anyone to shoot the Kelly gang, to Ned’s appearance in his now-famous armour, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim ‘He is the devil!’ and ‘He is the bunyip!’, FitzSimons brings the history of Ned Kelly and his gang exuberantly to life, weighing in on all of the myths, legends and controversies generated by this compelling and divisive Irish-Australian rebel. Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy’s brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an Australian republican channelling the spirit of Eureka? Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of this nation’s history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly’s early days in Beveridge, Victoria, in the mid-1800s, to the Felons’ Apprehension Act, which made it possible for anyone to shoot the Kelly gang, to Ned’s appearance in his now-famous armour, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim ‘He is the devil!’ and ‘He is the bunyip!’, FitzSimons brings the history of Ned Kelly and his gang exuberantly to life, weighing in on all of the myths, legends and controversies generated by this compelling and divisive Irish-Australian rebel. ______________________________________________ PRAISE FOR PETER FITZSIMONS 'Peter FitzSimons is an Australian phenomenon.' The Canberra Times '[FitzSimons] knows how to make words race like eager sled dogs on their homeward run.' Newcastle Herald 'Meticulously researched, well-written and incredibly presented.' Weekend Notes
Our Sunshine is the tale of a man whose story outgrew his life. Robert Drewe's strikingly imaginative re-creation of the inner life of Ned Kelly is written with a brilliant clarity and impressionistic economy. It carries the reader into a dreamworld of astonishing and violent revelation, an entrancing and frightening landscape of murder, sexuality, persecution, robbery, vanity, politics, and corruption.
Ned Kelly would never have imagined shrinking his size in order to escape the dreary hospital bed where he’s recovering from appendicitis. But, that’s exactly what Apis, his new friend (who happens to be a bee), helps him do with the aid of a special gold liquid. At apian size, Ned flies off with Apis and Nancy Clancy (who speaks only in rhyme) to try life in the hive. Although he questions some of their practices, like disposing of old drones who can’t work anymore, Ned soon makes friends with the bees, including Romeo, a drone lovesick for the Queen, Basil, a drone-rights activist, and even the haughty Queen herself.
When Ned Kelly fought his "last stand" at Glenrowan, he made his suit of armor and a tiny bush pub part of Australian folklore. But what really happened at the Glenrowan Inn when the Kelly Gang took up arms against the government? Who was there when the bullets began to fly and how did their actions help to set the course of history? Almost 130 years after the gunfight, a team of archaeologists peeled back the layers of history at Glenrowan to reveal new information about how the battle played out, uncovering the stories of the people caught up in a violent confrontation that helped to define what it means to be Australian. The True Story of Ned Kelly's Last Stand uses science, history, and family lore to literally unearth a new understanding of how a legend was made. It examines the actions of a woman who took a chance and lost. It delves into the lives and deaths of the people who helped to create the legend. And, perhaps most importantly, as the inn reveals its lost secrets, it creates an opportunity to shed new light on Ned Kelly, a man who still polarizes a nation as either a romantic hero or a convicted killer.
Outlaw, murderer, self-proclaimed victim, Ned Kelly is an Australian icon. But who was he? Kelly’s extraordinary achievement is to have provided his own answer to that question. The Jerilderie Letter is his remarkable manifesto and a startling record of his voice.
We all think we know the story of Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous outlaw, but we've never seen him in full color like this before ... Edward 'Ned' Kelly was born in 1855 into a poor Irish immigrant family in rural Victoria. He grew up loyal to his family, angry at the injustice he saw in Australian society and desperate to better his situation by any means. Often in trouble with the police, with the so-called Kelly Gang he was involved in horse and cattle stealing, bank robbing, kidnapping and ultimately murder. But he was the only bushranger to write a famous and compelling letter explaining his behavior. Folk hero or criminal, this is the story of Ned Kelly as you've never seen it before.
Most Australians know something about Ned Kelly ndash; his gangrsquo;s final shoot out with the police at Glenrowan, Ned in his iron armour taken down by troopers shooting at his exposed legs, his subsequent trial and hanging in Melbourne ndash; itrsquo;s a story often told. But did you know that Ned was planning a republic of north-east Victoria? That many of the settlers in the area were ready to take on the establishment and form their own independent state? That Nedrsquo;s lsquo;life of crimersquo; can be linked to the gross corruption of the colonial Victorian police force? Historian Brad Webb has written the essential guide to the Kelly legacy, with rarely seen images. This book is a must for any library, and has plenty to offer to those who think they know the full story of the Kelly Gang.
The books on Kelly multiply without adding to our understanding. Instead the mythologising becomes more intense and uncritical. Doug Morrissey has something new to say on Kelly and his world. Ned Kelly was very ready with excuses and justifications for his actions. His admiring biographers endorse them. In this book Doug subjects them to close scrutiny. They all fall over and a different Ned emerges - a man who had embraced a lawless life. Doug Morrissey is an expert on life in Kelly country. His previous writings have annoyed the admirers of Australia's most famous bushranger. This book will cause heated debate. It includes a criticism of the best known Kelly books and a line by line annotation of the errors and misrepresentations in Ned's own Jerilderie Letter.
A new edition of the definitive biography of Ned Kelly. In Jone's biography, Kelly emerges as a man - a man who hated conflict but never escaped it. A private man incapable of being ordinary and unnoticed. Seen, even in his own lifetime, as what he represented rather than what he was.
