Paul Terry (1)Rezensionen

I requested this book because I have always been fascinated by history and also historic cases of mistaken identity or questions of identity. I had never heard of the story of Roger Tichborne before at all and I found "The Claimant" to be a wonderful introduction to this mysterious case.
At first glance, the story seems simple. A butcher from Wagga Wagga in Australia makes the stunning declaration that he is actually none other than Roger Tichborne, the missing (and presumed dead) Baronet of Tichborne Park. His biggest supporter is Roger Tichborne's mother who is certain that he is her missing son though there are others who back his claim. There are also quite a few others who are just as certain that he is an imposter. Eventually this question of identity is brought to trial to be put to rest once and for all.
The author must have done a great amount of research and really has a gift for sharing the detailed information without making it a dry read.

This book tells the story of the Kelly Gang from an historical point of view. The story is intertwined with details about of an archaeological dig of the site of the Glenrowan Hotel, which was the site of the Kelly Gang's last stand. There have been many books, articles, and films about the Kelly Gang, and most particularly about their last stand at Glenrowan where the infamous armour was used. A lot of those accounts rely on eyewitness stories and heresay, which makes it difficult to tell fact from myth. The archaeological dig was performed in an attempt to put more flesh on the historical account and weed out fiction. The result is a worthy retelling of the Kelly story that provides more balance than some previous accounts. There can be no doubt that the Kellys performed criminal acts, but there is also no doubt that they, and their sympathisers, suffered badly at the hands of the police. The deep mistrust between the two sides has taken a long time to heal. But the Kelly legend survives as an intimate part of Australian history and folklore.

I found this book a little difficult to start with, but once the retelling of the Kelly story began my interest picked up. In conclusion, I give this book 3 stars.

After a relative drought of a couple of decades, there has recently been an upsurge in books about Australia's bushrangers. A lot of this can be put down to the excitement over the rediscovery of the remains of Aussie icon Ned Kelly in the grounds of the former Pentridge prison and his subsequent reburial at his home cemetery at Greta in rural Victoria 130 years after his execution. In the last two years, there have been two excellent books on the siege at Glenrowan (one of them by Paul Terry), a rather fanciful book on Captain Thunderbolt, who terrorised the New England region in northern NSW, and now this work on one of Australia's most romanticized but least understood outlaws. Captain Moonlite, alias Andrew George Scott, was hardly worthy of the term bushranger. He was a misfit, albeit an articulate and intelligent one, who led a gang of outcast youths on a brief spree of violence in the hinterland of the Murrumbidgee River in 1879. The real spice in this otherwise sordid and petty tale is that Moonlite is generally regarded as Australia's only gay bushranger,. He certainly had a very close, passionate relationship with his young follower James Nesbitt, and wept bitterly after the young man died in his arms from a police bullet. But Terry is quick to point to out that the evidence for Moonlite's homosexuality is circumstantial at best, and that he almost certainly had affairs with women, one of whom was so enamored of him that she left her comfortable life to attend his trial and visit him before his hanging. This is an entertaining read, perhaps a bit short on solid facts, but high in drama. Terry manages to extract a certain grandeur from Moonlite's otherwise wasted life, and the reader is left speculating what this obviously highly intelligent and eloquent man could have achieved under different circumstances. Highly recommnded for all fans of Australia's frontier past.½