"'Our discoveries have been great, but the risks and misfortunes many.'
John Franklin always wanted to be a sailor. As a volunteer in the Royal Navy at age fourteen, he found himself in the Battle of Copenhagan, but nothing could prepare him for the adventure of a lifetime, when he set off in 1801 with his cousin Matthew Flinders on HMS Investigator as it sought to chart the first circumnavigation of Australia.
Taking on responsibility for the chronometers, under the jealous eye of Flinders' younger brother, the young midshipman found all the action, adventure and excitement he'd hoped for in his new life at sea. It inspired him to become one of the great navigators and explorers of the 19th century.
However, he wasn't quite so prepared for the other challenges that life onboard had in store - the rivalries with fellow shipmates, the shortages of food, and the harsh realities of what they encountered in the colonies. Danger, disease and death seemed to follow in their wake, and even the Investigator was at serious risk of survival, and had to flee to Koepang in present-day Indonesia for repair.
The history books tell us that the first circumnavigation of Australia was completed on this voyage - but award-winning author Anthony Hill tells us how it was achieved. The Investigators is an unforgettable story of high adventure, exploration, shipwreck and survival as a young sailor comes of age."
"'It's a good story, Samuel. You're a piece of living history.'
Oxford 1863: Young Samuel Speed sets a barley stack alight in the hope it will earn him a bed in prison for the night. He wants nothing more than a morsel of food in his belly and a warm place to sleep off the streets. What he receives is a sentence of seven years' servitude, to be served half a world away in the penal colony of Fremantle, Western Australia.
When Samuel boards the transport ship Belgravia, he is stripped of his clothing and even his name, and given regulations of when to rise, eat, clean and sleep. On arrival at Fremantle Prison, hard labour is added to the mix and he wonders if life can get any worse. The only solace he finds is a love of reading, which allows the likes of Tom Sawyer and Oliver Twist to become his lifelong friends.
Samuel is granted a ticket of leave in 1867 and full freedom in 1871, but what sort of life can a man forge for himself in the colony, with no skills, no money and no family? Will it be the beginning of the life he has always dreamed of, or do some sentences truly never end?
A colourful recreation of the life and times of the last known convict to be sent to Australia, The Last Convict is a moving study of old age and loneliness, as one social outcast finds meaning in his impoverished life through the power of literature. Meticulously researched and brilliantly woven into an engaging fictional account, it is an unforgettable story by an award-winning writer and historian.
'A story of hardship and privation, alongside high adventure, a fresh start in the colonies, and the protagonist's enduring solace in discovering the delights of literature. A ripping yarn.' The Age"
