George Barrington's Voyage to Botany Bay: Retelling a Convict's Travel Narrative of the 1790s (Literature of Travel, Exploration and Empire)

In 1791 George Barrington, the notorious "Prince of Pickpockets" was transported to the penal colony of New South Wales. Barrington's voyage to Botany Bay encouraged British publishers to falsely represent him as author of the first publication attributed to a convictÆs pen, The Impartial and Circumstantial Narrative of the Present State of Botany Bay (c. 1793). This fully annotated edition identifies the work's original textual sources and illuminates its complex publishing history. Shrewd publishers exploited the famous name and presented a seamless and colorful assemblage cut from official journals, revealing the extent of close contact with the Aboriginal population, the treatment of convicts and discovery of unusual plants and animals. Bearing all the hallmarks of authenticity, Barrington's account gained a singular place in popular contemporary travel and exploration literature, providing the foundation for a long series of embellished and illustrated histories. Barrington's revival as a reformed convict helped to transform his own image, while the narrative's insights into the rigors of transportation, the struggle for survival and daily life in the penal colony initiated a lively convict travel literature.

Suzanne Rickard was the 1999-2000 C.H. Currey Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney.