Flash Jim: The Astonishing Story of the Convict Fraudster Who Wrote Australia’s First Dictionary by Kel Richards

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. Stamp on inside page. Minor wear to book edges. Faint mark on right foredge. Body text and binding are still very good.

The astonishing story of James Hardy Vaux, writer of Australia's first dictionary and first true-crime memoir.

If you wear 'togs', tell a 'yarn', call someone 'sly', or refuse to 'snitch' on a friend, then you are talking like a convict.

These words, and hundreds of others, once left colonial magistrates baffled and police confused. So comprehensible to us today, the flash language of criminals and convicts had marine officer Watkin Tench complaining about the need for an interpreter in the colonial court.

Luckily, by 1811, that man was at hand. James Hardy Vaux - a conman, pickpocket, absconder and thief, born into comfortable circumstances in England, was so drawn to a life of crime he was transported to Australia ... not once, but three times!

Vaux's talents, glibness and audacity were extraordinary, and, perceiving an opportunity to ingratiate himself with authorities during his second sentence, he set about writing a dictionary of the colony's criminal slang, which was recognised for its uniqueness and taken back to England for publication.

Kel Richards tells Vaux's story brilliantly, with the help of Vaux's own extraordinarily candid memoir of misdeeds, one of the first true-crime memoirs ever published. A ripping read - especially for those who appreciate the power of words and the convict contribution to our idiom. (back cover)