Novel
Robbery Under Arms
Rolf Boldrewood · 1888
Opening lines
My name's Dick Marston, Sydney-side native. I'm twenty-nine years old, six feet in my stocking soles, and thirteen stone weight. Pretty strong and active with it, so they say.
Text quoted from gutenberg.net.au
Synopsis
From his cell, where he awaits hanging, Dick Marston writes the story of his life. With his brother Jim, he was drawn in by their father, a cattle thief, and then by Captain Starlight, a gentleman swindler and charmer, accompanied by Warrigal, his Aboriginal right-hand man. After a spell in prison and an escape, Starlight persuades the two brothers and their father to attack banks and coaches; the gang lives on the run from the police, drives a stolen herd of a thousand head to Adelaide and spends long months searching for gold around the imaginary mining town of Turon.
Context
Written, according to the ADB, when its author was a magistrate at Dubbo, the novel appeared as a serial in the Sydney Mail from 1 July 1882 to 11 August 1883, then in three volumes in London, from Remington, in 1888. As early as 1889, an abridged one-volume edition, lacking nearly thirty thousand words, entered Macmillan's Colonial Library; the scholarly edition by Paul Eggert and Elizabeth Webby, in 2006, restored the whole text of the serial. For Starlight, the author said he had blended several real bandits, including Harry Redford. The book was brought to the stage in 1890 by Alfred Dampier and Garnet Walch, then adapted several times for the cinema, from 1907 to 1985.
Who it is for
A long adventure novel in English, in the first person and in the spoken language of the bush; the common editions are abridged, and the scholarly edition gives the full text.
Prizes and reception
Never out of print according to Standard Ebooks; for the Englishman Thomas Wood, a classic without equal in Australian letters.