‘Romantic Ireland’s Dead and Gone’: Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37389/abei.v5i1.182446Keywords:
Peter Carey, Australian history, Ireland, True History of the Kelly GangAbstract
Peter Carey’s prize-winning novel, True History of the Kelly Gang (2000), takes as its subject a popular figure from Australian history, the bushranger Ned Kelly. Written in a style reminiscent of Kelly’s own, Carey sets out to present the major stages in the bushranger’s life and interpret his character and motivation. Over the years many people have seen his exploits as heroic, stemming from his Irish origins. Carey interrogates this belief and concludes that Ned was more Australian than Irish.
References
Butterss, Philip and Webby, Elizabeth. The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads. rev. ed., Ringwood,
Victoria: Penguin Books, 1993.
Carey, Peter (2000), True History of the Kelly Gang. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland
Press. The American edition was published by Knopf in 2000 and the English edition by Faber in
Kenneally, J. J. The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang. Melbourne: Stevens, 1929; 8th ed,
Lalor, Brian. The Encyclopaedia of Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2003.
McDermott, Alex (Ed.). The Jerilderie Letter by Ned Kelly. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2001.
Summerscale, Kate, quoted in ‘Carey’s Tale of Kelly wins second Booker, The Age (Melbourne), 19
October 2001.
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Copyright (c) 2003 Frank Molloy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
