- Title:
-
The Last Convict
- Written by:
-
Anthony Hill
- Read by:
-
Julian Garner
- Format:
-
Unabridged CD Audio Book
- Number of CDs:
-
8
- Duration:
-
9 hours 30 minutes
- Published:
-
February 02 2021
- Available Date:
-
February 02 2021
- Age Category:
-
Adult
- ISBN:
-
9780655671763
- Genres:
-
Fiction; Crime & Thriller; General Fiction; Historical Fiction
- Publisher:
-
Bolinda/Penguin Audio Australia
Qty
Format
Price
Bolinda price
#1 bestselling author
A moving and insightful audiobook about the life and times of Samuel Speed, believed to be the last of the transported convicts to die in Australia, and a vivid recreation of life in Australia’s penal era by the bestselling author of Soldier Boy.
‘It’s a good story, Samuel. You’re a piece of living history.’
Oxford 1863: Young Samuel Speed sets a barley stack alight in the hope it will earn him a bed in prison for the night. He wants nothing more than a morsel of food in his belly and a warm place to sleep off the streets. What he receives is a sentence of seven years’ servitude, to be served half a world away in the penal colony of Fremantle, Western Australia.
When Samuel boards the transport ship Belgravia, he is stripped of his clothing and even his name, and given regulations of when to rise, eat, clean and sleep. On arrival at Fremantle Prison, hard labour is added to the mix and he wonders if life can get any worse. The only solace he finds is a love of reading, which allows the likes of Tom Sawyer and Oliver Twist to become his lifelong friends.
Samuel is granted a ticket of leave in 1867 and full freedom in 1871, but what sort of life can a man forge for himself in the colony, with no skills, no money and no family? Will it be the beginning of the life he has always dreamed of, or do some sentences truly never end?