True History of the Kelly Gang. [Author SIGNED copy.]

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,author SIGNED,1st edn,2nd imp. [Complete number line 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3, so 1st edn,2nd imp.Minus loose map of Australia.] FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn but author's black ink signature - without dedication - to title page; minus the loose Australia map and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,matt,b/w photographic illustrated front panel,with reddy-brown and white lettering,and a red+white colour illustrated rear panel of dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no major nicks or tears present.The majority of the light creasing is to top edge of dw/dj and those corners.Top edges lightly marked/grubbed but still generally clean,fore-edges similar but less marked,so brighter and cleaner; contents bright,tight and clean - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corner tips,would appear unread - apart from book's slight lean and cocking. Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,plain khaki paper-covered boards with bright,crisp,blocked white ink printed letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate b/w map (Colony of NSW) illustrated endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj, author SIGNED,1st edn,9-349pp [odd numbered pagination] includes 13 Parcels/sections/chapters; plus
[unpaginated]blank,half-title,b/w photographic illustrated double-page title page with author's signature,a dedication,an epigram,separate title page separator page,detail of handwritten account in Melbourne Public Library,of Kelly's death - also explaining 13 parcels of letters/papers in Ned Kelly's hand being collected and transported away,individual Parcel separator pages,and to rear; accounts of siege at Glenrowan,Kelly's death, acknowledgements,and a note on type.
Winner of the Booker Prize for 2001.
In a dazzling act of ventriloquism,Peter Carey gives Ned Kelly a voice so wild,passionate and original that it is impossible not to believe that the famous bushranger himself is speaking from beyond the grave.
'True History of the Kelly Gang' is the song of Australia,and it sings its protest in a voice at once crude and delicate,menacing and heart-wrenching.Carey gives us Ned Kelly as orphan,as Oedipus,as horse-thief,farmer, bushranger,reformer,bank-robber,police-killer and,finally, as his country's beloved Robin Hood.
In 1878 Francis Harty,a poor farmer,said,'Ned Kelly is the best bloody man that has ever been in Benalla,I would fight up to my knees in blood for him - I have known him for years,I would take his word sooner than another man's oath'.
By the time of his hanging in 1880 a whole country would seem to agree - and it is a measure of Peter Carey's achievement that he has not only made art from his country's great story but that he persuades us all to understand the true measure of that 'best bloody man'.
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