The Jerilderie Letter

by Ned Kelly and Ned Kelly

Book Overview

. . . I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who has no alternative only to put up with the brutal... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571214770
• ISBN13: 9780571214778
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 93 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.3" x 4.9"

Customer Reviews

Here you have it in Ned Kelly's own words.

The story of Australia's famous character,Ned Kelly,has been told many times.It has been the subject of a multitude of articles in all types of magazines and historical papers. As it is probably the most famous "outlaw" story and character in Australia's history.It is naturally filled with fact,legend and all those other things that creep into such a popular event and the people involved.In stories like this ,there is naturally assumed points of view that the writers introduce, which are usually intended to sway the perspective of the reasons things happened as they did.And just as naturally, people who read about or watch movies on this story ;will come to their own conclusions of who were the "good guys" and who were the "bad Guys". Other reviewers have likened this story to the stories of Jesse James in the US that took place at roughly the same time or even the stories of Wyatt Earp,and certainly there are similiarities.One could also eequate it with what took place in cities as we saw in that great movie and books "The Gangs of New York ;or even with the period of Prohibition and its central figures of Al Capone and Eliot Ness in the late 1920's. These stories are well known;but here in Canada ,in exactly the same period,1845 to 1880,,there was a similar family,"The Black Donnellys" ,who were equally as famous. It is Canada's most famous story of murder,feuding,killings,theft,mayham,vigilante justice involving clergy,townspeople and the legal authorities,long ago established religious aand social animosities brought here from Ireland;all finally resulting in the massacre of five family members and their home, burned down around them by an approximately 25 member "Peace Committee" led by the town Constable. Trials were held,a witness who escaped the fire testified,numerous people obviously knew who the guilty were,but nobody was ever convicted.If you are interested on more of this story there is an excellent wep page "The Black Donnellys" and a book which I have written a review on. The big difference with this case is that Ned Kelly wrote a 56 page epistle ,which he spent two months composing ,how his family's persecution and events that led to his becoming one of the most famous outlaws in history.It was this document that inspired Peter Carey's book "True History of the Kelly Gang".It is inspired writing and is in its entirety in this book.There is also a 29 page introduction by Alex McDermott.For anyone wanting to understand the true story of Ned Kelly,this book is an essential reference. In Kelly's own words; "I was compelled to shoot them,or lie down and let them shoot me it would be wilful murder if they packed our remains in,shattered into a mass of animated gore to Mansfield,they would have got great praise and credit as well as promotion but I am reconed a horrid brute because I had not been cowardly enough to lie down for them under such trying circumstances and insults to my people certainly their wives and children are

The ramblings and rantings of Ned Kelly

First Paragraph: "Dear Sir, I wish to acquaint you with some of the occurrences of the present past and future, In or about the Spring of 1870 the ground was very soft a hawker named Mr Gould got his waggon bogged between Greta and my mother's house on the eleven mile creek, the ground was that rotten it would bog a duck in places so Mr Gould had abandon his waggon for fear of loosing his horses in the spewy ground."{sic} So begins the famous letter written by Ned Kelly, Australia's most famous bush ranger. It is not well written, it has poor grammer, but for historical purposes it is a very interesting read and in parts quite amusing, particularly in Kelly's description of the Victorian Police. For those of you familiar with Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang: A Novel this is the letter that inspired Carey's writing style that won him the ManBooker prize in 2001. An introduction by Alex McDermott gives a short account of the events leading up to the writing and publishing of the letter, including it's mysterious dissapearance and reappearance in 2000. This is a book for anyone interested in Australian history. It is a very short read of aprox 80 pages all up, it will take about 1 hour to read.