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In this his final book in a trilogy of works dealing with Ned Kelly and his community. Doug Morrissey presents the definitive account of the Stringybark Creek Police Murders. The ambush murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October 1878 was Ned Kelly's greatest crime. Ned shot and killed Michael Kennedy, Michael Scanlan and Thomas Lonigan and arrogantly blamed them for their deaths. Sergeant Kennedy endured a two hour interrogation and suffered a particularly callous and coldblooded death. Thomas McIntyre escaped the carnage and wrote a lengthy memoir of the Stringybark Creek encounter, which is annotated and published in Morrissey's book for the first time. Doug unravels the Str...
The books on Kelly multiply without adding to our understanding. Instead the mythologising becomes more intense and uncritical. Doug Morrissey has something new to say on Kelly and his world. Ned Kelly was very ready with excuses and justifications for his actions. His admiring biographers endorse them. In this book Doug subjects them to close scrutiny. They all fall over and a different Ned emerges - a man who had embraced a lawless life. Doug Morrissey is an expert on life in Kelly country. His previous writings have annoyed the admirers of Australia's most famous bushranger. This book will cause heated debate. It includes a criticism of the best known Kelly books and a line by line annotation of the errors and misrepresentations in Ned's own Jerilderie Letter.
Doug Morrissey's acclaimed book Ned Kelly: A Lawless Life (2015) was shortlisted for the prestigious Prime Minister's Literary Award for Australian History in 2016. This his second book in a trilogy of historical works dealing with Ned's life and times, shines a much-needed light on the bushranger's pioneer community. The lives of selectors, squatters, and stock thieves are examined revealing a complex community, significantly different from the Kelly myth fiction of squatter tyranny, police oppression and selector poverty and despair. Morrissey's book holds the key to understanding the Kelly Outbreak, Ned and his Sympathisers and the neglected 'silent' majority of respectable, law-abiding r...
Identifies and investigates international medievalism through three distinct strands: "Internationally Nationalist", "Someone Else's Past?", and "Activist Medievalism". Medievalism - the reception of the Middle Ages - often invokes a set of tropes generally considered 'medieval', rather than consciously engaging with medieval cultures and societies. International medievalism offers an additional interpretative layer by juxtaposing two or more national cultures, at least one of which is medieval. 'National' can be aspirational: it might refer to the area within agreed borders, or to the people who live there, but it might also describe the people who understand, or imagine, themselves to cons...
Nineteenth-century outlaw Ned Kelly is perhaps Australia's most famous historical figure. Ever since he went on the run in 1878 his story has been repeated time and again, in every conceivable medium. Although the value of his memory has been hotly contested – and arguably because of this – he remains perhaps the main national icon of Australia. Kelly's flamboyant crimes turned him into a popular hero for many Australians during his lifetime and far beyond: a symbol of freedom, anti authoritarianism, anti imperialism; a Robin Hood, a Jesse James, a Che Guevara. Others have portrayed him as a villain, a gangster, a terrorist. His latest incarnation has been as WikiLeaks founder and fellow...
Author Leo Kennedy is the great-grandson of Sergeant Michael Kennedy. Raised in the shadow of his great-grandfather's murder, Leo witnessed the deep psychological wounds inflicted on successive generations of his family - and the families of other victims - as the Ned Kelly myth grew around them and the sacrifice of their loved ones was forgotten. Leo himself was nicknamed 'Red Ned' at school and taunted for being on the wrong side of Australian history. Now, for the first time, and in brilliant prose that brings these historical episodes to life, Black Snake challenges the legend of Ned Kelly. Instead of celebrating an heroic man of the people, it gives voice to the victims of a merciless gang of outlaws. This is a captivating true story, gleaned from meticulous research and family history, of two men from similar backgrounds whose legacies were distorted by history.
Outlaw, murderer, self-proclaimed victim, Ned Kelly is an Australian icon. But who was he? Kelly’s extraordinary achievement is to have provided his own answer to that question. The Jerilderie Letter is his remarkable manifesto and a startling record of his voice.
'the best Kelly biography by a country mile' - The Australian The definitive biography of Ned Kelly - and a superb description of his times. A bestseller since it was first published, Ned Kelly: A Short Life is acknowledged as being the definitive biography. Ian Jones combines years of research into all the records of the era and exhaustive interviews with living descendants of those involved, to present a vivid and gripping account of one of Australia's most iconic figures. ‘It will probably stand as the definitive account of Kelly’s life and its meaning...a work of prodigious scholarship, vivid reportage and sharp analysis...the most detailed portrait of the outlaw ever written’ - Rod Moran, West Australian ‘the definitive biographical work’ - Dr John McQuilton, author of The Kelly Outbreak