Why am I passionate about this?
I fell in love with Australian history on a school camp to Beechworth, which was also my first introduction to Ned Kelly. As I got older, after having already tried to establish a career trajectory as an English teacher, I realised my passion for writing and history could help me create the books and media that I wished I could access, as well as be a place to store all those decades of research sitting in my head. My fascination with psychology, true crime, and Australian colonial history naturally reached a meeting point with the Australian bushrangers: the bandits that terrorised Australia for over a hundred years, the most infamous of whom was Ned Kelly.
Aidan's book list on Ned Kelly for beginners
Why did Aidan love this book?
This is the book I usually recommend these days to people wanting to get into Ned Kelly as it covers a much broader view of the Kelly story than Ian Jones’ books while still retaining that almost novelistic approach to the text. It’s a sort of one-stop shop for those who want to know a little about a lot when it comes to Ned, and ties together a lot of different areas of research on the subject.
1 author picked Ned Kelly as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Love him or loathe him, Ned Kelly has been at the heart of Australian culture and identity since he and his Gang were tracked down in bushland by the Victorian police and came out fighting, dressed in bulletproof iron armour made from farmers' ploughs.
Historians still disagree over virtually every aspect of the eldest Kelly boy's brushes with the law. Did he or did he not shoot Constable Fitzpatrick at their family home? Was he a lawless thug or a noble Robin Hood, a remorseless killer or a crusader against oppression and discrimination? Was he even a political revolutionary, an…