Second hand.
When, in April, 1947, the author, unknown, and tired from his effort, came to us, we - faced with many post-war publishing problems - did not want to look at another manuscript for eighteen months.
Why did the world and his neighbour choose to write about this uncrowned, larrikin King of Australia - Kelly? Were there not a thousand contemporary subjects more worthy of the pen of an aspiring writer?
We told Mr. Brown we were not interested!
Yet, by accident, we learned that he had spent all he had saved in the R.A.A.F. in writing the manuscript he now placed before us. For a year the book had been his life; and he had staked most of what little he had.
So there was nothing else for it. We said:
"We will read it."
Before we had turned a dozen pages we found ourselves into an exciting story, which now, on mature reflection, we believe will stand as history and literature.
This book is the result of patient research in quarters most likely to yield new and hitherto unpublished material; the autor's examination of a mass of evidence being rewarded by the dicovery of a piece of Kellyana which had lain in dust for over sixty years. Here is published for the first time the famous 8,300 word "Jerilderie Letter," given by Kelly to the bank teller, Living, the longest piece of writing ever done by the outlaw. This alone makes Australian Son the most desirable item of Kellyana in existence.
But the author has not only turned up fresh Kellyana. He has looked deeply into Victorian history. Ned Kelly stalks Australian earth against a background of the pulsing colonial life of his day. We know who he was, why he acted as he did, and where he stood in relation to political forces of his time. In this book, and era of Australian history is covered more effectively than in any other source we know.
Australian Son is illustrated by fifteen photographs specially made for this volume, with a jacket bearing a reproduction of the death-mask of Kelly, now in the Institute of Anatomy, Canberra.
In the powerful face of this most famous of Australian folk heroes you will read this book.
-The Publishers.