The Kelly Gang’s criminal exploits left a sizable paper trail for historians to read and interpret, including criminal records, newspaper reports and wanted posters offering prizes for Gang members dead or alive. To write this novel Carey climbed into the bushranger’s worn-out boots, mounted his stolen horse, and bounded gallantly into the land of historical fiction bravely going where many have gone before.Ĭertainly Carey’s not-so- True History is based on historical evidence. It has an intentionally old feel as though it had been discovered by a historian in the archive. The novel is written as though it were an authentic autobiography, written by the bushranger on paper printed with the “National Bank of Australia” letterhead, dated 1878. The True History of the Kelly Gang is not a “true history” at all, but rather an imagined autobiography of Australia’s greatest folk-hero, the bushranger Ned Kelly and his band of Irish-Australian outlaws. The title of Carey’s best-seller is misleading.
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