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The Ship That Never Was: The Greatest Escape Story Of Australian Colonial History

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title The Ship That Never Was: The Greatest Escape Story Of Australian Colonial History
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Adam Courtenay
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:336
Dimensions(mm): Height 210,Width 153
Category/GenreHistory
ISBN/Barcode 9780733338571
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher ABC Books
Imprint ABC Books
Publication Date 21 May 2018
Publication Country Australia

Description

The greatest escape story of Australian colonial history by the son of Australia's best-loved storyteller In 1823, cockney sailor and chancer James Porter was convicted of stealing a stack of beaver furs and transported halfway around the world to Van Diemen's Land. After several escape attempts from the notorious penal colony, Porter, who told authorities he was a 'beer-machine maker', was sent to Macquarie Harbour, known in Van Diemen's Land as hell on earth. Many had tried to escape Macquarie Harbour; few had succeeded. But when Governor George Arthur announced that the place would be closed and its prisoners moved to the new penal station of Port Arthur, Porter, along with a motley crew of other prisoners, pulled off an audacious escape. Wresting control of the ship they'd been building to transport them to their fresh hell, the escapees instead sailed all the way to Chile. What happened next is stranger than fiction, a fitting outcome for this true-life picaresque tale. The Ship That Never Was is the entertaining and rollicking story of what is surely the greatest escape in Australian colonial history. James Porter, whose memoirs were the inspiration for Marcus Clarke's For the Term of his Natural Life, is an original Australian larrikin whose ingenuity, gift of the gab and refusal to buckle under authority make him an irresistible anti-hero who deserves a place in our history.

Author Biography

The son of Australia's best-loved storyteller, Adam Courtenay is a Sydney-based writer and journalist. He has had a long career in the UK and Australia, writing for papers such as the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review. Adam has a love of Australia history and Australian stories and has written five books, including The Ship That Never Was and The Ghost and the Bounty Hunter.