Bettany's Book

First UK edition. Large 8vo. Pp. [iv], 599. Rust coloured paper boards, lettered in gilt to spine; illustrated map endpapers.

Signed and dated by the author to title page.

An epic novel tracing the origins of white Australia from its shameful convict past to its confident multicultural present. Inspired by the author's chance discovery of a diary while researching 19th-century Irish history that was to become The Great Shame (1998). Keneally's fascination with Australia's early years as an English penal colony was already evident with his third-published novel, Bring Larks and Heroes (1967). "A riveting and compendious account.... It is a tremendous work, full of scholarship, adventure, drama and compassion." –Rachel Cusk, Daily Telegraph