num_pages: 384
description: “I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.”In True History of the Kelly Gang, the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the lowly class of ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to a famous horse thief (who was also her lover), Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist.
  

language: English
title: True History of the Kelly Gang
titlecomplete: True History of the Kelly Gang
characters: Edward "Ned" Kelly
genres: Classics, Australia, Historical, Fiction, Novels, Historical Fiction, Literature, Westerns, Literary Fiction, Crime
ratings_count: 22324
places: Australia
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Miles Franklin Literary Award, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Victorian Premier's Literary Award
category: Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Queensland Premier's Literary Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
category: Roman, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Colin Roderick Award, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best Book Overall, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Dublin Literary Award
category: Shortlist
publisher: Vintage