Solomon's Noose
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.79 (646 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1922129747 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 338 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-12-29 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book Amazon Customer I thoroughly enjoyed reading this bookonce I had started I couldn't put it down and although I didn't read it all in one sitting I had completed it within three nights.The detailed research is evident and obviously reflects Steve's many years of experience as a journalist and editor. It's a record of a terrible period in Australia's history but it is more than a history book. Steve brings these people alive to us. Incredibly these are true stor. A gripping tale of Queen Victoria's longest-serving hangman “Solomon’s Noose” transports us south of Australia to a far corner of the British Empire, where a 2A gripping tale of Queen Victoria's longest-serving hangman John C. Henry “Solomon’s Noose” transports us south of Australia to a far corner of the British Empire, where a 24-year-old convict became Queen Victoria’s youngest executioner in a penal colony that in the 1800s became the dumping ground for 70,000 felons.Journalist and editor Steve Harris’s well-researched narrative recounts the life of Solomon Blay, who hanged 206 men, women and children in Van Diemen’s Land, now known . -year-old convict became Queen Victoria’s youngest executioner in a penal colony that in the 1800s became the dumping ground for 70,000 felons.Journalist and editor Steve Harris’s well-researched narrative recounts the life of Solomon Blay, who hanged 206 men, women and children in Van Diemen’s Land, now known . From the ends of the earth, a haunting hangman's tale Solomon Blay turned 21 on the three-month voyage to Van Diemen's Land on a convict ship in 1837. Within three years the thief and counterfeiter was Queen Victoria's Hobart hangman, youngest executioner in the British Empire and one of the busiest. By the time he sent his last 'customer" through the trapdoor in 1887, Blay, 71, had hanged more than 200 people: old, young, male and female, some in batches of four or more. At 75, in 1891, he helped
Beware the shock of the true." - Andrew Rule, award-winning journalist and author. Solomon's Noose is an important book in exposing the dark 'underbelly' in the formation of modern Australia. The book paints a vivid picture of the society and poverty from which Blay's character was forged in England and the desperate, brutal nature of being a convict in Van Diemen's Land. "Impressive research and a story that challenges the imagination - except that it's true. "From the furthest corner of that foreign country, the past, comes the haunting story of the convict who became the British Empire's youngest executioner. The story of a young convict, Solomon Blay, who became Her Majesty's hangman in Van Diemen's Land; the man who personally had to deliver an Empire's judgement on 200 men and women, and endured his own noose of personal demons and demonisation in order to "survive"; all in the context of the great struggles of good-evil, life-death, hope-despair, which drew the attention of Darwin, Twain, Trollope and Dickens as Van Diemen's Land evolved from a Hades of Evil to sow the seeds of nationhood. A prisoner elects to become a hangman - to improve his lot in life. All this set against the Gothic world of Van Diemen's Land in the time of convicts, bushrangers and rough justice." - Les Carlyon, bestselling author of Gallipoli and The Great War.