Robbery Under Arms

Dick Marston tells this story from a prison cell, waiting to hang, looking back on how a respectable young stockman slid into a life of crime. With his brother Jim and the polished, mysterious Captain Starlight, he takes up cattle duffing, bushranging, and gold robbery across the New South Wales frontier of the 1850s. Rolf Boldrewood, who worked the goldfields and the bush himself, fills the tale with real detail about squatters, troopers, and the lure of easy money, but never lets Marston off the moral hook. First serialized in 1882, it became one of colonial Australia’s defining novels and its finest outlaw adventure. Read it here free as a PDF and EPUB edition.