Robbery Under Arms (1888) is a novel by Rolf Boldrewood, the pseudonym of Australian novelist Thomas Browne. A squatter for nearly twenty-five years, he came to know the ways of life on the outskirts of civilization, which allowed him to lead a peaceful, uncomplicated, and inexpensive existence. Originally serialized in Australian weekly magazines, Browne’s work as Rolf Bolfrewood is an incomparable record of colonial Australia, where outlaws and speculators lived side by side on land stolen from the continent’s Aboriginal peoples. Robbery Under Arms has been adapted several times for film and theater. “My name's Dick Marston, Sydney-side native. I'm twenty-nine years old, six feet in my stocking soles, and thirteen stone weight. Pretty strong and active with it, so they say. I don't want to blow—not here, any road—but it takes a good man to put me on my back, or stand up to me with the gloves, or the naked mauleys.” Imprisoned for his crimes, Dick Marston prepares to be executed. With one month to live, he sits down to write the story of his life as an Australian bushranger. Alongside Captain Starlight, an English nobleman turned outlaw, he participated in a string of cattle thefts and armed robberies that would bring him enough gold and infamy to last a lifetime. Action-packed and fast-paced, Robbery Under Arms is a brilliant adventure novel from one of nineteenth century Australia’s most popular writers of fiction. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Rolf Boldrewood’s Robbery Under Arms is a classic work of Australian literature reimagined for modern readers.

Reproduction of the original: Robbery under Arms by Thomas Alexander Browne

Robbery Under Arms, subtitled A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia, was published in serial form in the Sydney Mail newspaper between July 1882 and August 1883. It was published under the name of Rolf Boldrewood, a pseudonym for Thomas Alexander Browne, a police magistrate and gold commissioner. Robbery Under Arms is an entertaining adventure story told from the first person point of view of Richard “Dick” Marston. The story is in the form of a journal written from jail where he’s waiting to be hanged for his crimes. Marston and his brother Jim are led astray as young men by their father, who made money by cattle “duffing,” or stealing. They are introduced to their father’s associate, known only as Captain Starlight, a clever and charming fraudster. After a spell in jail, from which he escapes, Marston, his brother, and father are persuaded by Starlight to operate as bank robbers and bushrangers. They embark on a life continually on the run from the police. Despite this, Dick and Jim also manage to spend a considerable time prospecting for gold, and the gold rush and the fictitious gold town of Turon are described in detail. The character of Captain Starlight is based largely on the real-life exploits of bushrangers Harry Redford and Thomas Smith, the latter known as “Captain Midnight.” Regarded as a classic of Australian literature, Robbery Under Arms has never been out of print, and has been the basis of several adaptations in the form of films and television serials. This Standard Ebooks edition is unabridged, and restores some 30,000 words from the original serialization which were cut out of the 1889 one-volume edition of the novel. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

As the publishing, film and music industries are dominated by Big Media conglomerates, there is often recourse to simplistic ideological and conspiratorial readings of industry dynamics. Copyright, Creativity, Big Media and Cultural Value: Incorporating the Author explains why copyright is much more than a creator’s private property right or a mechanism through which corporations control cultural production and influence mass consumption choices. The volume is grounded in extensive, painstakingly detailed and colourful original archival research into business histories of major successful artists including Conan Doyle, Hall Caine, Margaret Atwood, Dame Nellie Melba, Radiohead and Banksy, and the industries and genres that grew up around their activities. Chapters address big questions about how copyright generates income and how distributions of profits are allocated in the publishing, film and music industries. It includes discussion of the creation of new formats, the interplay between old media and new technologies, international copyright reform and cross-industry relations. Copyright, Creativity, Big Media and Cultural Value is a wide-ranging and important resource for students and practitioners of law and policy, media studies, cultural studies and literary history.

'A Cultural History of the Bushranger Legend in Theatres and Cinemas, 1828–2017' is a multidisciplinary investigation into the history of cultural representations of the bushranger legend on the stage and screen, charting that history from its origins in colonial theatre works performed while bushrangers still roamed Australia’s bush to contemporary Australian cinema. It considers the influences of industrial, political and social disruptions on these representations as well as their contributions to those disruptions. The cultural history recounted in this book provides not only an insight into the role of popular narrative representations of bushrangers in the development and reflection of Australian character, but also a detailed case study of the specific mechanisms at work in the symbiosis between a nation’s values and its creative production.