Edit position

Last set 2 weeks, 2 days ago. Manual moves override automatic placement until the next shelfie/spine match.

Ned Kelly : a short life

by Ian Jones

Ned Kelly was an Australian bushranger and folk hero whose defiance of colonial authority made him a symbol for the rural underclass. This work explores his criminal career, Irish heritage, and enduring influence on Australian culture and the arts.

Accession 9780733623431 ISBN 9780733623431 Publisher Hachette Australia

Book Images

Reference and live side by side Hover to see live images

Reference

Live

CONNECTIONS

No connections

State

on_shelf: True
position_updated_at: 2026-05-05 17:11
orientation: vertical

Details

Physical

binding_type: Hard Back
dimensions: none captured
spine_text: MARGARET THATCHER NED KELLY NAMEDROPPING x +

LOCATION HISTORY

B 4 Current vertical

4 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

2 months ago

B 2 vertical

2 months, 3 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

2 months, 3 weeks ago

B 2 vertical

2 months, 3 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

2 months, 3 weeks ago

B 2 vertical

2 months, 3 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

2 months, 3 weeks ago

B 2 vertical

3 months ago

B 4 vertical

3 months ago

B 2 vertical

3 months ago

B 4 vertical

3 months ago

B 2 vertical

3 months ago

B 4 vertical

3 months, 1 week ago

B 2 vertical

3 months, 2 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

3 months, 3 weeks ago

B 2 vertical

3 months, 3 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

3 months, 3 weeks ago

B 2 vertical

3 months, 3 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

3 months, 3 weeks ago

B 2 vertical

3 months, 4 weeks ago

B 4 vertical

4 months ago

B 2 vertical

4 months, 1 week ago

Book Location

Updated 2 weeks, 2 days ago

Book Images

Reference and live side by side Hover to see live images

Reference

Live

Vernon snapshot

Frozen copy of Vernon's record from the last sync. Fields tagged → flow back into the Pulse record.

Never synced from Vernon

Identity

name→ title

Ned Kelly : a short life

vernon_id

—

accession_no→ accession_number

—

vernon_slug

—

Drives Pulse state

curr_loc_status→ on_shelf

—

location_name

—

location_reason

—

isbn_issn→ isbn (when valid)

—

Descriptive

production_date

—

object_type

—

object_status

—

brief_description

—

Subjects & people

authors→ author (initial fill only)

—

tags→ tags

—

subject_people

—

subject_objects

—

Topics and Themes

1. **Bushranger & Outlaw Biography**
Ian Jones draws on a lifetime of research to present Ned Kelly — Australia's most iconic bushranger — as a fully realised human being: a man who hated conflict yet never escaped it, and who was seen even in his own lifetime as a symbol rather than a person.

The book's central biographical tension is: how do you recover the real man from beneath a legend that his enemies helped create as much as his allies did?

Connect to books about: outlaw biography, bushranging history, crime history, banditry.

---

2. **Colonial Australia & Frontier Society**
The book is set against the harsh realities of 19th-century colonial Victoria, where poverty, land conflict, and the brutal conditions of settler life shaped the Kelly family's fate and the social world Ned inhabited.

Connect to books about: Australian colonial history, settler society, frontier violence, land tenure.

---

3. **Class Conflict & Social Banditry**
Kelly became a champion of the rural underclass and an enemy of arrogant officialdom — a figure whose criminal acts were interpreted by many as resistance against an unjust class system that favoured wealthy squatters over poor selectors.

The book engages with the idea of the outlaw as a social bandit, a figure who channels the grievances of the dispossessed poor.

Connect to books about: class struggle, social banditry, peasant resistance, rural poverty.

---

4. **Irish-Australian Identity & Diaspora**
Ned Kelly was of Irish stock — to some he embodied the rebel spirit of the Irish, to others he was the dangerous example of Irish-Australian opposition to British law and authority. His story is inseparable from the Irish immigrant experience in colonial Australia.

Connect to books about: Irish diaspora, immigrant identity, anti-British sentiment, Catholic communities in colonial Australia.

---

5. **Police Power, Injustice & Institutional Corruption**
The book examines how systematic police harassment and institutional incompetence drove the Kelly Outbreak, raising questions about the legitimacy of state authority and the abuse of power by those meant to enforce the law.

Connect to books about: police corruption, criminal justice history, state power, civil liberties.

---

6. **Myth-Making, Legend & National Identity**
Ned Kelly became a fixture of Australia's artistic and cultural life — in paintings, literature, poetry, drama, and film — and Jones grapples with how the man became a myth, and what that myth reveals about Australian national identity.

The book's deeper question is: what does a society's choice of folk hero say about its values and self-image?

Connect to books about: national mythology, folk heroes, cultural memory, Australian identity.

---

7. **Political Rebellion & the Republic Ideal**
Jones explored the idea that Ned Kelly's Glenrowan campaign was not merely criminal but had a broader political agenda — potentially a Eureka Stockade-style rebellion, with Kelly's Jerilderie Letter serving as a manifesto articulating grievances against the colonial state.

Connect to books about: political rebellion, republicanism, colonial resistance, manifestos and protest writing.

---

8. **Crime, Justice & Capital Punishment**
The book raises searching questions about the fairness of Kelly's trial and execution, including the reliability of witness testimony and whether the death penalty was a just response to the killings at Stringybark Creek — questions that resonate with broader debates about criminal justice.

Connect to books about: capital punishment, criminal trials, miscarriages of justice, legal history.

Ned Kelly : a short life

Book Images

TAGS

CONNECTIONS

State

Details

LOCATION HISTORY

Book Location

Book Images

Vernon snapshot

Topics and Themes