The Commonwealth of Thieves
Thomas Keneally
The story of modern Australia begins in eighteenth-century Britain, where people were hanged for petty offences but crime was rife, and the gaols were bursting. From this situation was born the Sydney experiment, with criminals perceived to be damaging British society transported to Sydney, an 'open air prison with walls 14,000 miles thick'.
Eleven ships were dispatched in 1781, and arrived in Australia after eight hellish months at sea. Tom Keneally describes the first four years of the 'thief colony' and how, despite the escapes, the floggings, the murders and the rebellions, it survived against the odds to create a culture which would never have been tolerated in its homeland but which, in Australia, became part of the identity of a new and audacious nation.
By the author of Schindler's Ark, since made into the internationally acclaimed film, Schindler's List.
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About Thomas Keneally
Reviews for The Commonwealth of Thieves
Nicholas Shakespeare
Daily Telegraph
Evocative, broad-ranging and intelligently observed
Mail on Sunday
Keneally has deployed his outstanding talents as a narrative writer to produce an enlivening, informative and judicious book about his country's troubled origins
Barclay McBain
Herald
Keneally has always had a grand talent for the telling of a tale. His rattling account of the genesis of his native city is one of his very best
Carmen Callil
The Times
The Commonwealth of Thieves is immaculately researched and historically exact... a great read and a useful scholarly resource....an account of an extraordinary event described with gusto and sympathy
Kate Grenville
Guardian
[A] beautifully written account of the foundation of New South Wales, complete with disastrous attitudes towards the "Indians" and a horrific account of the convicts' sea-crossing
Martin Hoyle
Financial Times
Elegantly written and solidly researched narrative... this is a fascinating study of a unique social experiment
Saul David
Sunday Telegraph
Keneally uses his novelist's skill to construct a lively mosaic from contemporary accounts of what today seems an utterly barbaric process
Christian Tyler
Financial Times
Tom Keneally's book offers an engaging treatment of a subject which over the years has provoked a long and sometimes heated debate
Glyndwr Williams
Times Literary Supplement