The Fatal Shore

The Fatal Shore

Summary

The authoritative, epic history of the British colonisation of Australia.

In 1787, the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King George III, the British Government sent a fleet to colonise Australia.

Documenting the brutal transportation of men, women and children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system which was to be the precursor to the Gulag and was the origin of Australia, The Fatal Shore is the definitive, masterfully written narrative that has given its true history to Australia.

'A unique phantasmagoria of crime and punishment, which combines the shadowy terrors of Goya with the tumescent life of Dickens' Peter Ackroyd, The Times

‘An enthralling account… brimming over with rare and pungent characters, and tales of pathos, bravery, and horror’ Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard

Reviews

  • A unique phantasmagoria of crime and punishment, which combines the shadowy terrors of Goya with the tumescent life of Dickens
    Peter Ackroyd, The Times

About the author

Robert Hughes

Robert Hughes, art critic of Time magazine and twice winner of the American College Art Association's F. J. Mather Award for distinguished criticism, is author of The Shock of the New, and of Heaven and Hell in Western Art. He is also author of the acclaimed Nothing if Not Critical, a work on Frank Auerbach; Barcelona, and Culture of Complaint, essays on the fraying of America. Robert Hughes died in August 2012.
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