Marcus Clarke - For the Term of His Natural Life

Beschrijving boek

The historic epic. 

Illustrated with historic views of Port Arthur.

Marcus Clarke’s famous historical novel For the Term of His Natural Life is more than one of Australia’s greatest and most widely read classics. It is a horrifying, compelling story of suffering and survival under desperate conditions.

Drawing it material from the appalling but authentic annals of Tasmania’s haunted past, it tells of a man who has been born to wealth and comfort yet is transported the convict island on a murder charge of which he is innocent - and against which he cannot defend himself without betraying his own mother.

Amid searing, unforgettable descriptions of his sufferings at Port Arthur, Macquarie Harbour and the infamous Norfolk Island, the tale unfolds a disturbing and brutal panorama of people and events.

Yet excitement never flags as convicts and overseers all play their parts in the drama - vying for the reader’s attention with floggings, rape, mutiny, disease, escape and even cannibalism.

This grand if harrowing work was written from the heart, with the aim of exposing evil by means of a frontal attack on the emotions. It has long been called one of the masterpieces of Australia’s first century.