AustLit

A narrative that includes short extracts from government and personal documents relating to the life of Theodore Krakouer.

'This chapter deals with five connected matters: the life and times of Thomas Brooks; the veracity or otherwise of Passages as a source in reconstructing this life; an attempt to find who the author of Passages was (or at the very least who he wasn't); and the contexts for the public emergence of this "convict voice" in the 1850s. Finally there is the question of analysing such a narrative, as "distinct from the empirical quarrying" of it.' p.32

Maxwell-Stewart traces the life of convict author James Porter and the published versions of Porter's account of the mutiny on the Frederick. Maxwell-Stewart also examines the textual links betweens Porter's work and Marcus Clarke's His Natural Life.

Through the examination of early committee papers held by the Archives of Tasmania, particularly the first-person evidence of Eliza Churchill, Frost contends that 'Female convict narratives do exist, if we know where to look, or by chance happen upon them.' Citing low literacy rates among convict women as a major factor in the dearth of such narratives, Frost also questions whether the autobiographical style was 'foreign to the convict women' and whether they may have resisted the genre.

Ballyn and Frost examine Cameron's account of Adelaide de la Theroza's life. They find little evidence to support Cameron's story, but conclude 'Whatever may or may not be true about Adelaide's origins, we are satisfied now that this convict woman who became an Australian pioneer mother and grandmother began her improbable journey in Spain.'

Casella and Frost each make separate contributions to this article. Casella explains her disovery of Ellen Cornwall's letter at the Lawrence House Museum in Launceston, Cornwall. Frost and Casella both muse on the circumstances that could have surrounded the writing of the letter and each imagines possible scenarios for Cornwall's life in England and Van Diemen's Land.

A letter, dated February 25th 1848, written from Van Diemen's Land by the convict Ellen Cornwall to her husband Frederick who was living in Birmingham, England.

Duffield examines official records relating to the lives of four black convicts (all part of the African diaspora) who were transported to Van Diemen's Land in the 1820s and 1830s. He is particularly interested in the assertive first-person micro-narratives offered by the convicts to the Muster Masters at the time of their arrival in Hobart. Duffield concludes, 'Exciting prospects now open for extensive unpackaging of similar 'I' for an 'Eye' micro-narratives, thus enriching our understanding of the relationships of convict narrative to convict lived experience.'

Phillipps traces the stories of three convicted men who sought to be re-united with their families.