The Adventures of Ralph Rashleigh: A Penal Exile in Australia 1825-1844 by James Tucker

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Mark on right foredge. Previous owner has added an inscription to front endpage and a bookplate. Foxing marks on front endpage. Sticky tape stains on back endpage. Body text and binding are still in very good condition. Dust jacket is very good condition with light creasing to top edge and fading to spine.

Here, in horrifying detail, are the English prison hulks - the crowded hell of the transport vessels - the cruelty of the gaolers and the overseers at the agricultural settlement at Emu Plains - the privations of the early settlers, brushed with marauding bushrangers and confrontations with Aboriginals.

What makes this colourful and dramatic story unique, and gives it its important place among novels of the time, is that Ralph Rashleigh was, in fact, the author of the original manuscript from which the book was taken - a convict, later identified as James Tucker, transported to Botany Bay in 1827.

The author's own experiences undoubtedly formed the basis for this first-hand account of convict life - written under the pseudonym Giacomo di Rosenberg in the 1840s and first published in this form in 1929. (book flap)