The books in this section are usually hardcover and in decent shape, though we'll sometimes offer hard-to-find books in lesser condition at a reduced price. Though we often put images of the book with their original dust jackets, the copies here won't always (or even often) have them. If that is important to you, please call ahead or say so in the order comments!
The celebrated writing team of Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall writes historical fiction with a difference. They hew close to the line dividing fact and fiction. Their greatest triumphs have been tales resting solidly on fact. As in the Bounty books, the main events of this magnificent story of the penal settlement that was Australia's first colony form a strange and colorful chapter of eighteenth century history.
Hugh Tallant, the hero and chronicler of the story, is tried at Newgate Prison in 1785 for his part in a highway robbery and is sentenced for life to the penal colony in Australia. He sails on the first convict ship, one of the few prisoners fortunate enough to escape the harsh, inhuman treatment of the later voyages.
Tallant's personal account of the long voyage to Botany Bay, the pitiful struggles of the convict settlers, his long-delayed escape to England, and his eventual pardon by the Crown, made possible only through the efforts of the girl he marries, makes this a rich and human story of Hogarthian strength and power. Here is a book which, for the characterization and colorful adventure, will stand beside the famous Bounty Trilogy.
(A serial version of "Botany Bay" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.)
Jacket drawing by N. C. Wyeth
—from the dust jacket
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