Ralph Rashleigh

Written in the 1840s and first printed in 1929, this convict novel follows Ralph Rashleigh from petty crime in England through a death sentence commuted to transportation. In New South Wales he is flogged, assigned, and sent to the Newcastle coal mines; he falls among bushrangers and later lives for years with an Aboriginal group on the northern coast. The narrative is a chain of brutal and picaresque episodes rather than a single intrigue. It is presented as the life of an exile, written from inside the penal system. The book is a colonial adventure and social record, not a later bushranger romance.

Bound in pale green cloth printed with a wrap-around design in brown by Lambourne. Map endleaves printed white on brown. Page tops stained brown. Brown slipcase.