'Cross-cutting between England and Western Australia, which is described here as "a vast and unknown country, almost mysterious in its solitude and unlikeness to any other part of the earth," O'Reilly's novel mixes romance, transportation, and discussion of penal policy, with Moondyne Joe himself, a prisoner who escapes to the Australian bush, re-emerging subsequently as "Comptroller-General of Convicts in Australia," in which role he propounds a system of reform based upon "the radical principles of humanity".
'The novel's plot develops through a romance between an English Catholic with an Irish name, Will Sheridan, and his childhood sweetheart Alice Walmsley, who is wrongly convicted of murdering her own child and held in London's Millbank Prison, after being transported to Australia.'
Source: Giles, Paul. Antipodean America: Australasia and the Constitution of U.S. Literature. USA: Oxford University Press, 2014.
