Just Tassie Books

At least 37% of male convicts and 15% of female convicts were tattooed by the time they arrived in the penal colonies, making Australians quite possibly the world's most heavily tattooed English-speaking people of the 19th century.

In the 80 years between 1787 and 1868 more than 160,000 men, women and children convicted of everything from picking pockets to murder were sentenced to be transported 'beyond the seas'.

Told from the heart by the Searle brothers' great-nephew, award-winning author Stephen Dando-Collins using the letters and journals of the Searle brothers and remembrances of other family members, Crack Hardy is a compelling book that defines Australia and Australians during the making of our nation on the far-flung battlefields of the First World War.

This is perhaps the only extant diary ever written during the Australian penal era whilst its convict writer was imprisoned. John Ward, writing whilst incarcerated on Norfolk Island but formerly a groom to an officer gentleman, tells a story of thwarted love that he claims led him to a life of crime including theft, sexual assault and more. In telling the candid story of his downfall he exposes his own ruthlessness and lack of empathy.