australian son

A century and one-third after his death, Ned Kelly’s not forgotten, and it’s hard to believe that Australians will ever forget him. In his own lifetime he passed into folklore, as Max Brown makes clear, so where is he now? This is not an easy question, but wherever he is, Max Brown’s book is part of the answer.

When Ned was alive, and police in two states were trying to find him, he was regularly labelled a criminal, murderer, desperado, villain, et cetera. Respectable society condemned him because they had to. We might say they knew no better. The amazing thing about Ned and his gang, though, is that they convinced a great many people that justice might mean injustice, and vice-versa. Ned was hanged in 1880. A lifetime later, with the world recovering from World War 2, Australian Son was written. Decades later, Max revised it but didn’t live to see this later version, which keeps the tradition alive. Tradition? Yes. The famous bushranger, from the poorest of poor families, has given rise to a persisting idea that the apparatus of justice may pursue the ends of injustice, and be meted out to those who, by their own sense of what’s right, deserve it least.

Published by Georgian House, Melbourne, 1948; revised edition, Georgian House, 1956; Angus and Robertson Australian Classics, 1980; followed by this final fully revised and edited edition published in paperback in 2005, and hardback in 2013 by Network Creative Services.