Ned Kelly - Hardcover

FitzSimons, Peter

4.12

632 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593074920 ISBN 13: 9780593074923

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2015

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A prominent Australian historian brings 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

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 armor 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 channeling the spirit of Eureka? Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of the Australia'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 armor, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim "He is the devil!"

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About the Author:

Peter FitzSimons is a journalist with the Sun-Herald and the Sydney Morning Herald, and the author of more than 20 books, including Batavia, Mawson, and How Hemlines Predict the Economy.

Review:

"The Kelly book that exceeds Peter Carey's novel ... completely felt, viscerally characterised ... it success as compelling historical narrative ... the bantering, zesty prose takes you in and keeps you there. But it is FitzSimons' skill at creating a sense of a fully lived inner world that achieves a consistently transformative effect on the reader's mental world - the mark of a very good book indeed." -- Alex McDermott CANBERRA TIMES

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