“Mad Dan” Morgan Bushranger

by J. A. King

Phillip Mathews, 1976, [First Edition], ISBN 0908001002, black and white illustrations throughout, illustrated frontispiece, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, dustjacket contacted to cover, previous owners inscription on front endpaper (see photographs)

“’Mad Dan’ Morgan was a bushranger in a savage period of Australia’s history.  Colonial society punished him cruelly with all the severity of the times, created a monster, and finally exacted a barbaric revenge.  Morgan’s life was a curdled mixture of terrible melodrama and bewildering futility.  But the ‘monster’ was a man and J. A. King’s brilliant drawings, carefully researched, evoke strong feelings for both the man and his times.  It is a broad canvas, sometimes satirical, sometimes pathetic and sometimes gut-crushing in almost Gothic intensity.”