An Embarrassment of Riches [Sharon Hollingsworth]

When Brian McDonald wrote his book "What They Said About Ned!" (which includes an annotated Kelly Gang bibliography) I wonder if he had any idea that he was also the author of much longing and lust? Going through the pages is like being a kid again pouring over the Sears Christmas catalog (or whatever the Australian equivalent to Sears is)....I want everything in it! There are visions of sugar plums dancing in my head! I don't usually like to write in books or make any marks in them, but I have gone through and put little check marks next to what I have acquired over the years.

At the top of my wish list/(book) bucket list  is what has not been published in book form - Number 770 in WTSAN - Monty Wedd's "Ned Kelly" comic strip...one hundred and forty six episodes of it...talk about sugar plums! Hopefully one day someone will finally gather and publish these comics for the enjoyment and edification of all of us. As an aside, I was recently very surprised to learn that the "Ned Kelly" comic series did NOT run in Victoria at all! Imagine that!

Thinking back on early Kelly authors like Max Brown and others of his ilk, they had to do lots of travel/legwork and digging in dusty files and corners and do much petitioning and cajoling to get what is now virtually at our fingertips.

We have an embarrassment of riches out there, the information is hanging like ripe low-lying fruit for the taking. Come, come! A banquet awaits!

When I first got involved in the Kelly world in late 2002 there were many things still not available that have come online in the past couple of years. We did not have the Royal Commission online, you had to be very well-heeled to put one of these volumes (even the 1968 reprint) on your shelf to be a glorified dust-catcher, let me tell you! Through the kind efforts of Brian Stevenson I was able to finally get a hold of  the RC and I read all 720 pages in record time as I was so starved for the information. You develop a new appreciation for some of the players in the saga once you read their testimony (and, yes, I know, some lied under oath to cover their rears!). For instance, I gained a whole new perspective on Charles Hope Nicolson who was very put upon by the duo of Frankie (Hare) and Freddie (Standish). There are many illuminating moments in the RC when things start to come together much more clearly. The RC can now be read online in two different places for free. Any good search engine should be able to help you find it. Letting your fingers do the walking beats actual legwork every time, doesn't it?

Same goes for Hare's "Last of the Bushrangers" that some spent hundreds on in the past as well as Cookson's Kelly Gang From Within newspaper series, both of which are offered free to read online. However, the Cookson online is sans the original newspaper photographs which Brian McDonald has put in his published version of it as well as the informative annotations he has made, both make it worth the price of admission (and, no, I am not getting a cut of sales!).

We can add the National Library of Australia's historical newspapers website to the list of embarrassing riches. They have digitized all of the the Argus newspaper articles on the Kelly Gang.  I remember waiting and waiting for them to finally launch and then for them to finally get to the late 1870s, early 1880s with the uploads, seemed to take an eternity! Then when I was doing an article about Superintendent Hare for Glenrowan1880 I had to delay the finishing of it as I had to wait some weeks for the late 1880s and early 90s to load in full so I could continue my research. Along the way I found so many juicy nuggets of information and I love the fact that we can see the full on article that some books only give small quotations from or refer to. 

As more time goes by, my wish list/bucket list expands and contracts as new items are acquired and new things become available.

While I am on a roll, I am wondering when the next big in depth Kelly tome will be published? Is someone working on one now?

There has been a plethora of Kelly books for the juvenile audience lately. Sure, some have good graphics and great  illustrations and they make wonderful primers for the younger set, but  I long for a book to come out on the Kelly Gang that actually teaches me something I did not know or makes such a stylish impact that I go, WOW-WEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! I want someone to (in the apt words of Elizabeth Bennett as she read Mr. Darcy's letter),  "astonish me" in the same way the Kellys astonished the world!

I will not hold my breath (nor my tongue).