AustLit

''Mad, bad and dangerous to know' was Lady Caroline Lamb's pithy description of Lord Byron but, as Doug Morrissey shows, the words might be even more appropriately applied to Ned Kelly. With irrational delusions that merged into paranoia Kelly was a career criminal, in an organised network of criminals, for whom extreme violence was simply part of his stock in trade. He lived A Lawless Life — as the subtitle indicates — but the scale and nature of his violent criminality is all too often either ignored or excused by his biographers. Ned's modern equivalent in organised crime might be the leader of an outlaw motor-cycle gang, with fingers in many criminal pies (but especially in the re-birthing of stolen cars), ready to use extreme violence including murder to advance his plans or evade arrest, and generally indifferent to the mores of society at large. It is hard to imagine that such a figure, whose behaviour would be condemned by all except his fellow gang-members and, perhaps, their families, could ever have a sympathetic and romantic mythology develop around his activities. But Ned Kelly, with his bloodthirsty gang whose behaviour outraged the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries, has generated a literature and framed a popular perception that, most often, places him somewhere on the martyrdom spectrum. This sentiment is at the heart of Peter FitzSimons' Ned Kelly: The Story of Australia's Most Notorious Legend (2013) and is merely the latest reworking of the popular myths. Morrissey's book is more than a simple account of A Lawless Life. It is an important revisionary attack on the dominant historiography with its 'old cliches and metaphors' and he highlights the limited research and repetition of multiple errors that are characteristic of most Kelly biographies.' (Introduction)

'The use of the word 'remarkable' in the sub-title of this fascinating book is wholly justified. Some of the most important strands of mid-nineteenth century British and imperial history shaped the life of this woman who died so tragically young. Fortunately, she and the members of her large, extended family were inveterate letter writers and Lucy also kept a diary and detailed journals for the years she spent as a governess in New Zealand and later as the wife of a grazier in northern Queensland, near Hughenden, and farmer in New Zealand. She also kept another record of her experiences in her sketches and paintings and this volume is abundantly provided with illustrations to complement the extensive extracts that Vivers has chosen from the letters, diary and journals. In many places Lucy is allowed to tell her own story without scholarly mediation and Vivers shows both skill and sensitivity in her choice of extracts and the narrative connections she makes to carry the story forward. Perhaps the most important feature of this well researched work is that we are able to hear Lucy's voice as she recorded her impressions of the people, the places and the landscapes of the Antipodean colonies where she was a relatively brief resident but remarkably acute observer.' (Introduction)

A record of Australian service life during the Great War, this book examines the soldiers' writings contained in their trench and troopship papers and magazines. These field publications ranged from handwritten sheets to professionally printed souvenir issues, recording poetry, prose, letters and diaries describing the experiences and of the men who served in the Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F.).
While valuable from an historical and social point of view, the material contained in this book has important literary merit, because the troopship magazines reveal the hopes, aspirations and changing attitudes of volunteer soldiers during World War 1.
The poetry and prose, most of which was written anonymously, has not been indexed.