Bound For Botany Bay: Impressions Of Transportation And Convict Life
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: minor insect damage on fep.
Few chapters in the history of the British Empire are as harrowing and morally complex as the forced transportation of convicts to the penal colonies of Australia, and Bound for Botany Bay: Impressions of Transportation and Convict Life by J.D. Shearer chronicles this dark passage with striking visual and historical immediacy. Through a compelling collection of illustrations and accompanying text, the work presents an intimate portrait of the men and women who were wrenched from their lives in Britain and Ireland and shipped across the globe to serve their sentences on the other side of the world. With an introduction by Olaf Ruhen, the book situates the convict experience within the broader machinery of empire, justice, and punishment that defined Georgian and early Victorian Britain. Shearer's work is significant not merely as a historical record but as a piece of social commentary, illustrating the brutal realities of a penal system that transformed a distant continent. The vivid impressionistic style captures the chaos, despair, and dark humanity of convict life — from the overcrowded hulks and brutal sea voyages to the harsh labour of the Australian settlements. Scholarly yet deeply human in its approach, this is a volume that asks enduring questions about crime, punishment, and the society that created both — leaving the reader to wonder how much of that world truly lies behind us.
Author: J.D. Shearer
Format: Hardback
Genre: Australian history
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: Wear and tear with damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Condition remarks: minor insect damage on fep.
Few chapters in the history of the British Empire are as harrowing and morally complex as the forced transportation of convicts to the penal colonies of Australia, and Bound for Botany Bay: Impressions of Transportation and Convict Life by J.D. Shearer chronicles this dark passage with striking visual and historical immediacy. Through a compelling collection of illustrations and accompanying text, the work presents an intimate portrait of the men and women who were wrenched from their lives in Britain and Ireland and shipped across the globe to serve their sentences on the other side of the world. With an introduction by Olaf Ruhen, the book situates the convict experience within the broader machinery of empire, justice, and punishment that defined Georgian and early Victorian Britain. Shearer's work is significant not merely as a historical record but as a piece of social commentary, illustrating the brutal realities of a penal system that transformed a distant continent. The vivid impressionistic style captures the chaos, despair, and dark humanity of convict life — from the overcrowded hulks and brutal sea voyages to the harsh labour of the Australian settlements. Scholarly yet deeply human in its approach, this is a volume that asks enduring questions about crime, punishment, and the society that created both — leaving the reader to wonder how much of that world truly lies behind us.