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Oscar and Lucinda

Oscar and Lucinda

True History of the Kelly Gang

Summary

OSCAR AND LUCINDA is a sweeping, irrepressibly inventive novel set in nineteenth-century England and Australia where the two potential lovers lead parallel lives until chance brings them together on board ship.
A narrative tangle of love, religion, gambling, commerce and colonialism culminates in a nightmare expedition – the result of a wager – to transport a glass church across the Australian wilderness.

In TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG the legendary Australian outlaw Ned Kelly speaks for himself in a voice that is direct, colloquial, theatrical, and utterly magical. To his pursuers he is nothing but a monstrous criminal, but to his own people he is a hero, defying British imperial authority in support of the poor Irish settlers who are its victims. In a dazzling act of ventriloquism, Carey brings the famous bushranger unforgettably to life.

Reviews

  • A novel of extraordinary richness, complexity and strength … it brings the past, in all its difference, bewilderingly into our present. It fills me with a wild, savage envy and no novelist could say fairer than that.
    Angela Carter

About the author

Peter Carey

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