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First edition, 1892
y separately published work icon Tales of the Convict System selected work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 1892... 1892 Tales of the Convict System
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

A collection of short stories that recount experiences of the convict system in Australia.

Notes

  • The 1975 publication with the same title is a different selection of Price Warung stories.
  • Dedication: To the memory of Marcus Clarke
  • Epigraph: The Transportation System .... is a monument such as, I suppose, was never before erected by any people, Christian or Pagan, of combined absurdity and wickedness.' - Archbishop Whateley (in the House of Lords, 1840).

Contents

* Contents derived from the Sydney, New South Wales,:Bulletin , 1892 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
How Muster-Master Stoneman Earned His Breakfast, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 1-11)
How "Lifer" Dale Attended the Guest-Dinner, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 12-24)
Egerton of Ours, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 25-36)
Absalom Day's Promotion, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 37-54)
The Convict's Sacrament, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 55-69)
Under the Whip, or, The Parson's Lost Soul, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 70-85)
The Commandant's Picnic Party, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 86-108)
The Consecration of the Commission, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 109-127)
The Special Commission, 'Price Warung' , sequence short story (p. 109-175)
Spinning the Hemp, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 128-149)
Knotting the Rope, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 150-175)
Marooned on the Grummet, 'Price Warung' , single work short story (p. 176-193)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Bulletin , 1892 .
      Extent: 193p.
      Note/s:
      • Author's Preface: The series of stories from which the contents of this book are selected, and which have appeared, with an occasional intermission, in the weekly issues of The Bulletin during the last two years, are true in essence. There is not one in which the motive has not been suggested by or based upon, fact. They have been submitted to Australian readers as the first fruits, in literary form, of nearly twenty years' study and investigation of the sources of Australian history, and, however far his work falls short of the standard of graphic story-telling, the writer feels that he can honestly claim that he has sought to communicate to it the quality of historical truth. His principal aim throughout has been the preservation of the appropriate local colour and the historic atmosphere, and not the mere presentment of dramatic episodes. To this end he has directed analytic research and systematic industry, and if he has erred in his attempts to describe the subjects of The System as men and women, and not as chattels - things - numbers, the fault cannot be attributed to carelessness or to an indifference to the obligations which bind the historian. ....
      • B. G. Andrews comments that this work republishes eleven of the twenty-five instalments of the Bulletin newspaper series, 'Tales of the System', originally published between 24 May 1890 and 10 January 1891.('Textual Note', Tales of the Convict System: Selected Stories of Price Warung ed. B. G. Andrews (1975): xxxiii-xxxvi).
      Series: Bulletin Series Bulletin (publisher), series - publisher Number in series: 2

Works about this Work

Aboriginal Gothic Katrin Althans , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010; (p. 11-29)
In this essay, Althans ‘treats the Gothic as being a mode which continues to endow genres with a certain set of menacing stock elements and unstable characteristics of which the interrogation of boundaries, binaries, and identity are particularly useful in an Aboriginal Australian context’. (p.11-12)
Aboriginal Gothic Katrin Althans , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Darkness Subverted : Aboriginal Gothic in Black Australian Literature and Film 2010; (p. 11-29)
In this essay, Althans ‘treats the Gothic as being a mode which continues to endow genres with a certain set of menacing stock elements and unstable characteristics of which the interrogation of boundaries, binaries, and identity are particularly useful in an Aboriginal Australian context’. (p.11-12)
Last amended 19 Sep 2022 11:01:37
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