Bail Up! A Pictorial History Of Australia's Most Notorious Bushrangers: Geoff Hocking

Australia's colonial history has a deep convict stain. One of the first songs that tells of that history is Botany Bay, a lament at leaving the shore of old England forever. This was followed by the Wild Colonial Boy, which revered the life and death, in 1836, of Bold Jack Donohoe. Onto the colonial horizon rode band after band of more wild colonial boys, young Australian born currency lads, who took liberties in a land they sought to claim as theirs. Most were regarded as folk heroes by the labouring class - but they were despised by the bankers, the squatters and property owners. Almost all suffered the might of British justice and many met their fate dangling from a rope or shot in battle. Not all were charming rogues like 'Captain Moonlite' or gallant highwaymen like young handsome Bold Ben Hall. There were callous killers such as Thomas 'The Monster' Jeffery, the marauding brothers Joe and Jimmy Governor and Alexander Pearce the cannibal, who encouraged others to escape with him only to kill them and dine on their flesh. This is a chronological journey from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, through the years of Port Arthur and Norfolk Island, to the goldfields of the 1850s and finally to the saga of the last of the defiant Irishmen - Edward 'Ned' Kelly, hanged at Melbourne on November 11 1880. Illustrated with colour and black and white artwork, black and white photographs and relevant ephemera.