Convict Tattoos – Examining and Illustrating the Tattoos of Convict Men and Women | Simon Barnard | 2016 [HCDJ]

At least 37% of male convicts and 15% of female convicts were tattooed by the time they arrived in the Australian penal colonies — making 19th century Australia one of the most heavily tattooed English-speaking societies in the world.

Simon Barnard's book draws on the convict records held by Australian archives — particularly the physical description books that colonial authorities used to record individual convicts' distinguishing marks — to document and illustrate what those tattoos actually looked like. The tattoos were recorded in words by colonial clerks; Barnard has translated those descriptions back into visual form, recreating the imagery that convicts carried on their bodies: hearts, anchors, initials, ships, flowers, clasped hands and figures that tell individual stories of life before transportation.

At 120 indexed pages with colour illustrations throughout, this is both a work of social history and a remarkable piece of visual reconstruction — a window into the personal lives of the people behind the convict records.

BOOK DETAILS

• Hardcover with dust jacket.
• 120 pages, indexed.
• Colour illustrations.
• Published 2016.

CONDITION

New.

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