Australia - historical fiction
Explore the best historical fiction books set in Australia. Discover captivating tales of Australia's rich past, from colonial times to the 20th century, in these top-rated novels.
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Dutch Point
by Barbara Yates Rothwell
Spans 300 years of West Australian history beginning with the wrecking of a Dutch vessel in the mid 1600s. Weaves through the days of early settlement and immigration. Traces the fortunes of five young orphans.
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The Secret River
by Kate Grenville
Moving between the slums of nineteenth-century London and the convict colonies of Australia, a compelling historical novel chronicles the lives and fortunes of the early pioneers of New South Wales, in a volume based on the author's own family history. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.
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White Earth
by Andrew Mcgahan
“The saga of the McIvors is nothing less than a grim and supremely entertaining take on colonialism in Australia and the tortured, stained hearts of all its New World cousins. A-.”—Entertainment Weekly After his father’s death, young William is cast upon the charity of an unknown great-uncle, John McIvor. The old man was brought up expecting to marry the heiress to Kuran Station—a grand estate in the Australian Outback—only to be disappointed by his rejection and the selling off of the land. He has devoted his life to putting the estate back together and has moved into the once-elegant mansion. McIvor tries to imbue William with his obsession, but his hold on the land is threatened by laws entitling the Aborigines to reclaim sacred sites. William’s mother desperately wants her son to become John McIvor’s heir, but no one realizes that William is ill and his condition is worsening. The White Earth won Australia’s Miles Franklin Award for 2005 and was selected as Book of the Year (2004) by The Age and the The Courier-Mail.
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True History of the Kelly Gang
by Peter Carey
“I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.” In True History of the Kelly Gang, the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the lowly class of ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to a famous horse thief (who was also her lover), Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist.
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The Exiles
by William Stuart Long
First of "The Australians" series. Australia is settled by England's convicts. fifteen-year-old Jenny Taggart, convicted of theft, survives amongst hardened crimin- als to become Queen of the Convicts.
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The Miner's Right
by Rolf Boldrewood
Thomas Alexander Browne (1826-1915) was an Australian writer, who sometimes published under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood and best known for his novel Robbery Under Arms (1882). Browne spent some twenty-five years as a squatter and about the same time as a government official, but his third career as author extended over forty years. In 1865 he had two articles on pastoral life in Australia in the Cornhill Magazine, and he also began to contribute articles and serial stories to the Australian weeklies. One of these, Ups and Downs: A Story of Australian Life, was published in book form in London in 1878. It was re-issued as The Squatter's Dream in 1890. Other novels appeared in quick succession, including The Miner's Right: A Tale of the Australian Goldfields (1890), A Sydney-Side Saxon (1891), Nevermore (1892), A Modern Buccaneer (1894), The Sphinx of Eaglehawk (1895), The Crooked Stick (1895), The Sealskin Coat (1896), My Run Home (1897), Plain Living (1898), A Romance of Canvas Town and Other Stories (1898), War to the Knife (1899), Babes in the Bush (1900), and The Last Chance (1905).
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Such Is Life
by Joseph Furphy
Joseph Furphy (1843-1912), is widely regarded as the "Father of the Australian novel." He mostly wrote under the pseudonym Tom Collins, and was extremely popular in Australia during the late 19th century. In his youth he had written many verses and in December 1867 he had been awarded the first prize of 3 at the Kyneton Literary Society for a vigorous set of verses on The Death of President Lincoln. His most famous work is Such is Life (1903), a fictional account of the life of rural dwellers, including bullock drivers, squatters and itinerant travellers, in southern New South Wales and Victoria, during the 1880s. In 1905, he moved to Western Australia, where his sons were living. He built a house at Swanbourne, which is now the headquarters of the West Australian branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers. Furphy's popularity may have influenced the usage of the Australian slang word furphy, meaning a "tall story." However, scholars consider it more likely that the word originated with water carts, produced in large numbers by J. Furphy & Sons, a company owned by Joseph's brother John.
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Voss
by Patrick White
Join J. M. Coetzee and Thomas Keneally in rediscovering Nobel Laureate Patrick White In 1973, Australian writer Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature." Set in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is White's best-known book, a sweeping novel about a secret passion between the explorer Voss and the young orphan Laura. As Voss is tested by hardship, mutiny, and betrayal during his crossing of the brutal Australian desert, Laura awaits his return in Sydney, where she endures their months of separation as if her life were a dream and Voss the only reality. Marrying a sensitive rendering of hidden love with a stark adventure narrative, Voss is a novel of extraordinary power and virtuosity from a twentieth-century master. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Gould's Book of Fish
by Richard Flanagan
In the early nineteenth century, forger and thief William Buelow Gould lands in prison in Australia, where the prison doctor utilizes his painting talents to create an illustrated taxonomy of the country's exotic sea creatures.
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Rifling Paradise
by Jem Poster
A gripping thriller set in the wilds of nineteenth-century Australia by the critically acclaimed author of Courting Shadows.
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Morgan's Run
by Colleen McCullough
Colleen McCullough captivated millions with her beloved worldwide bestseller The Thorn Birds. Now she takes readers to the birth of modern Australia with a breath-taking saga brimming with drama, history, and passion. It was one of the greatest human experiments ever undertaken: to populate an unknown continent with the criminals of English society. For Richard Morgan, twelve months as a prisoner on the high seas would be just the beginning in a soul-trying test to survive in a hostile new land where, against all odds, he would find a new love and a new life. From the dank cells of England's prisons to the unforgiving frontier of the eighteenth-century outback, Morgan's Run is the epic tale of one man whose strength and character helped settle a country and define its future.