As he flees the police, Ned Kelly scribbles his narrative in semi-literate but magically descriptive prose. To his pursuers he is a thief and a murderer. To his own people he’s a hero for opposing the English.

Ned, who saw his first prison cell at 15, has become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over towns and defying authority.

Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist. There are no sentences like these in all Australian literature and yet they could only have grown from our soil.