The Dickens boy : a novel / Thomas Keneally.
"In the late 1800s, rather than run the risk of his under-achieving sons tarnishing his reputation at home, Charles Dickens sent two of them to Australia. The tenth child of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn, had consistently proved unable 'to apply himself ' to school or life. So aged sixteen, he is sent, as his brother Alfred was before him, to Australia. Plorn arrives in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father's work. He is sent out to a 2000-square-mile station in remotest New South Wales to learn to become a man, and a gentleman stockman, from the most diverse and toughest of companions. In the outback he becomes enmeshed with Paakantji, colonists, colonial-born, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Plorn, unexpectedly, encounters the same veneration of his father and familiarity with Dickens' work in Australia as was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushrangers, sheep droving, shifty stock and station agents, frontier wars and first encounters with Australian women, Plorn meets extraordinary people and enjoys wonderful adventures as he works to prove himself. This is Tom Keneally in his most familiar terrain. Taking historical figures and events and reimagining them with verve, compassion and humour. It is a triumph."--Publisher's website.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781982169145 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: 401 pages ; 24 cm
- Edition: First Atria Books hardcover edition.
- Publisher: New York : Atria Books, 2022.
- Copyright: ©2020
Content descriptions
General Note: | Originally published in paperback: Docklands, Victoria : Vintage, part of the Penguin Random House Group, 2020. |
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 > Family > Fiction. Country life > Fiction. Families > Fiction. Immigrants > Australia > History > 19th century > Fiction. Secrecy > Fiction. Australia > Fiction. |
Genre: | Bildungsromans. Biographical fiction. Historical fiction. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cookstown Branch | FIC Kenea | 31681010267813 | FICTION | Available | - |
Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty-three novels since, most recently Crimes of the Father, Napoleon’s Last Island, Shame and the Captives, and the New York Times bestselling The Daughters of Mars. He is also the author of Schindler’s List, which won the Booker Prize in 1982, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, and Confederates, all of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also written several works of nonfiction, including his boyhood memoir Homebush Boy, The Commonwealth of Thieves, and Searching for Schindler. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney, Australia.