y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia single work   novel  
First known date: 1882 Issue Details: First known date: 1882... 1882 Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Dick Marston narrates the events of his and his brother Jim's association with notorious bushranger Captain Starlight.

Exhibitions

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8015556
8014658
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Adaptations

y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Alfred Dampier , Garnet Walch , 1890 Paddington St Lucia : Currency Press Australasian Drama Studies , 1985 Z549990 1890 single work drama (taught in 3 units)
Robbery Over Arms Robbery Under Arms W. Horace Bent , J. Billin , John Lawler , 1891 single work musical theatre burlesque humour

Another of Horace Bent's popular burlesques, Robbery Over Arms sends up the famous Australian novel by Rolf Boldrewood and the dramatic version recently staged by Alfred Dampier. The 1891 production was advertised as being produced 'by arrangement with Rough Bolder(Colling)Wood' (Age 21 February 1891, p.12).
form y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Charles MacMahon , ( dir. S. A. Fitzgerald ) 1907 Australia : MacMahon's Exquisite Pictures , 1907 Z820517 1907 single work film/TV

Set in the 1850s, Robbery Under Arms is the story of two brothers who follow their father's footsteps into a life of bushranging under the influence of the charismatic Captain Starlight. Told from the perspective of Dick Marston, the narrative sees him and his brother Jim set out on a series of escapades that include theft and robbery under arms. The story also explores the conflicting emotions that Jim experiences as his life leads him further away from his mother and sister and from the life and love that he might have otherwise have experienced.
form y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Kenneth Brampton , ( dir. Kenneth Brampton ) 1920 Australia : Pacific Photo Plays , 1920 Z820533 1920 single work film/TV

In adapting Robbery Under Arms into a feature film, Kenneth Brampton incorporates the major threads of the original story into approximately 60 minutes of storytelling time. The narrative follows the two Marsden brothers through their adventures with the gentlemanly bushranger Captain Starlight, their romance with local girls, their life on the goldfields, and their eventual capture by the police after Starlight is shot. The story differs in the end, however, by having both brothers emerge from years in prison to start new lives with their patiently waiting sweethearts, whereas Boldrewood's novel sees Jim killed by the police.
form y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Peter Creswell , United Kingdom (UK) : British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) , 1941 8189685 1941 series - publisher radio play historical fiction

An adaptation of Rolf Boldrewood's novel for radio, by British script-writer Peter Creswell.
form y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Rex Rienits , 1950 England : British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) , 1950 6105349 1950 series - publisher radio play crime historical fiction

A BBC radio production of Rolf Boldrewood's 1882 novel, Robbery Under Arms was the first work completed for the BBC by Australian radio writer Rex Rienits after his move to the UK in 1949.
form y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Alexander Baron , W. P. Lipscomb , Richard Mason , ( dir. Jack Lee ) 1957 London : Rank Organisation , 1957 Z820540 1957 single work film/TV Set in the 1850s, Robbery Under Arms is the story of two brothers, Dick and Jim Marston, who follow their father's footsteps into a life of bushranging through the influence of the charismatic Captain Starlight. The narrative sees the brothers set out on a series of escapades that include theft and robbery under arms. The story also explores the conflicting emotions that Jim experiences as his life leads him further away both from his mother and sister and from the life and love that he might have otherwise have experienced.
y separately published work icon Captain Starlight : A Musical Play in Two Acts Paul Sherman , Ian McKinley (composer), 1965 (Manuscript version)x401150 Z860012 1965 single work musical theatre
form y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Tony Morphett , Graeme Koetsveld , Michael Jenkins , ( dir. Donald Crombie et. al. )agent Adelaide : South Australian Film Corporation , 1985 Z820546 1985 single work film/TV

Set in the late 1800s, Robbery Under Arms is the story of bushranger Captain Starlight, told from the perspective of young Dick Marsden. Dick and his brother Jim follow their father's footsteps, on the wrong side of the law. After they succumb to the impetuosity of a tossed coin and participate in the theft and subsequent sale of fifteen hundred head of cattle, the pair team up with the mysterious Starlight (the renegade son of a British noble family), and evolve from petty criminals to outlawed bushrangers, terrorising the countryside, often in partnership with their father Ben and Starlight's Aboriginal offsider Warrigal. Throughout this story, the brothers find themselves at odds with both their mother and sister and with the lives they could have otherwise led.

form y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Michael Jenkins , Graeme Koetsveld , Tony Morphett , ( dir. Donald Crombie et. al. )agent Adelaide : South Australian Film Corporation , 1985 8091989 1985 series - publisher film/TV

An adaptation of Robbery Under Arms, released as both a feature film and a mini-series: this is the latter version.

Contents

* Contents derived from the St Lucia, Indooroopilly - St Lucia area, Brisbane - North West, Brisbane, Queensland,:University of Queensland Press , 2006 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Robbery Under Arms : Introduction (2006), Elizabeth Webby , Paul Eggert , single work criticism (p. xxiii-lxxxix)
Robbery Under Arms in Montreal, Paul Eggert , Elizabeth Webby , single work criticism (p. 632-672)
Places in Robbery Under Arms, Julieanne Lamond , single work prose (p. 693-705)
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 1936
Serialised by: The Weekly Times 1869 newspaper (867 issues)
Notes:
Serialised from 13 June 1936.
Link: Sighted: 01/07/2024
First known date: 1939
Serialised by: The Gippsland Times 1861 newspaper (2 issues)
Notes:
Serialised from 5 January 1939.
Link: Sighted: 01/07/2024
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Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Sound recording.
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Related Works

form y separately published work icon Captain Starlight : or, Gentleman of the Road Alfred Rolfe , ( dir. Alfred Rolfe ) Australia : Spencer's Pictures , 1911 6185853 1911 single work film/TV historical fiction crime

According to contemporary reviews:

'Miss Lily Dampier, Mr. Alfred Rolfe, and other artists carry on the action of the bushranging story, in which are several exciting pictures of horses at racing speed flying over logs and streams in rough country. In the elaborate series of clearly screened pictures taken by the Lyceum staff the situations revealed open at the home of the Marstons, passes on to an exciting race for the Gold Cup, won by Rainbow, shows how the bushrangers stick up the mail coach at the Rocky Rises, and exhibits Sir Ferdinand Morringer threatened with death in Terrible Hollow at the hands of the brutal Dan Moran, and his rescue by Starlight. One of the most applauded of the scenes last night was the burning of the stables and the rescue of the horses, and Starlight's Last Stand also excited enthusiasm.'

Source:

'Lyceum - "Captain Starlight"', Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 1911, p.p.
Untitled Jack Broadstreet , 1950 single work drama
— Appears in: Australian Week-End Review , 14 July vol. 1 no. 8 1950; (p. 127) Both separated from the men they love, Aileen Marston and Juliet offer differing perspectives on their loss.
A Hold-Up Rolf Boldrewood , 1957 extract novel (Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia)
— Appears in: The Boys' Book of the Commonwealth 1957; (p. 19-38) Dick Marston joins Captain Starlight in the bail up of the Goulburn mail coach, then heads with the bushrangers to the goldfields.
y separately published work icon Robbery Under Arms Gail Holst-Warhaft , West Melbourne : Nelson , 1977 Z1097547 1977 single work children's fiction children's
From : Robbery Under Arms Rolf Boldrewood , 2009 extract novel (Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia)
— Appears in: Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 117-121)
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Works about this Work

White Writing, Indigenous Australia, and the Chronotopes of the Settler Novel Michael R. Griffiths , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to the Australian Novel 2023; (p. 69-82)

'This chapter critically analyzes the work of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century white settler colonial writers who represented Indigenous characters and stories. It will examines how certain tropes persisted, from Rolf Boldrewood’s late romanticism to Eleanor Darks reconstructive modernism. It explores how novels by these writers manifest a contradictory set of ideas towards race and landscape, which it takes as emblematic of wider white Australian culture.' (Publication abstract)
Whiteness, Aboriginality and Representation in the Twentieth Century Australian Novel Michael R. Griffiths , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
The Australian Crime Novel, 1830-1950 Rachel Franks , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
Irish Republicanism and the Colonial Australian Bushranger Narrative Ken Gelder , Rachael Weaver , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 36 no. 2 2021;

'This article examines a range of colonial Australian Irish bushranger narratives in terms of their investments in revolutionary republicanism, arguing that these become increasingly contested and compromised over time. Beginning with the anonymously published novel Rebel Convicts (1858), it looks at how the fate of transported Irish revolutionaries is imagined in relation to colonial settlement and the convict system. It then turns to Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter (c. 1879), highlighting Kelly’s rhetoric of resistance and mapping his affinities with Irish American republicanism. John Boyle O’Reilly was a Fenian activist, transported to Western Australia in 1867. His novel Moondyne (1878, 1879), rather than unleashing an Irish revolutionary political agenda, is based instead on an English-Catholic bushranger, and its interest in republicanism is in any case displaced from its Australian setting. Ned Kelly’s execution in 1880 gave rise to a new wave of popular narratives, including James Skipp Borlase’s The Iron-Clad Bushranger (1881), which fictionalises Kelly’s career – embroiling him in Irish Fenian plots – and recasts his political affiliations as criminal characteristics. Rolf Boldrewood’s Robbery Under Arms (1882–3) was also published in the wake of the Kelly saga but is notable for its political conservatism, stripping its Irish-Catholic bushrangers of their revolutionary potential to better serve the interests of a powerful pastoral elite. This conservatism is both challenged and magnified in Rosa Praed’s Outlaw and Lawmaker (1893), which celebrates the career of John Boyle O’Reilly while also re-directing his political radicalism into romance. The article concludes that the revolutionary figure of the Irish bushranger is gradually divorced from any radical agency and relegated to a remote chapter of colonial Australia’s history.'

Source: Abstract.
Unmade Cinesound Stephen Vagg , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: FilmInk , 10 August 2019;
Guns in the Bush 1950 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Week-End Review , 6 April vol. 1 no. 2 1950; (p. 3)
— Review of Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia Rolf Boldrewood , 1882 single work novel
Romance of a Magistrate Michael Kirby , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , March vol. 51 no. 3 2007; (p. 92)
— Review of Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia Rolf Boldrewood , 1882 single work novel
Half a Million Not Out Rick Hosking , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 290 2007; (p. 33-34)
— Review of Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia Rolf Boldrewood , 1882 single work novel
Untitled Damien Barlow , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 7 no. 2007; (p. 135-138)
— Review of Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia Rolf Boldrewood , 1882 single work novel
Robbery Under Arms 1947 single work review
— Appears in: The Cairns Post , 8 November 1947; (p. 4)
— Review of Robbery Under Arms : A Story of Life and Adventure in the Bush and in the Goldfields of Australia Rolf Boldrewood , 1882 single work novel
Killing the Narrator : National Differences in Adaptations of Robbery Under Arms Elizabeth Webby , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 1 no. 2002; (p. 44-50) This article focuses on the 1957 cinematic adaptation of Boldrewood's novel. Observing that 'an adaptation to another medium of a previously existing text can be seen as a materialised reading, one determined not only by particular technologies, legal regulations and generic conventions prevailing at the time the adaptation is made, each of which places constraints on what can be represented, but by assumptions about audience expectations and values', Webby examines the extent to which these factors also reflect national differences.
Colonialism, Nationalism, Modernism Stephen Cowden , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Kunapipi , vol. 25 no. 2 2003; (p. 144-158) Instead of seeing Such is Life in the traditional terms of a celebratory nationalist narrative, Stephen Cowden seeks to locate it within the historical social conflicts of its time. As these issues are still very much alive today, he believes that a re-reading of the novel in this sense assist a greater understanding of the social contours through which Australian identity has been developed.
Currency Lasses and a Police Villain in the 'Lawless Kelly' Bushranger Myth J. S. Ryan , 1986 single work criticism
— Appears in: Margin , no. 16 1986; (p. 15-29)
Robbery Under Arms : The Colonial Market, Imperial Publishers, and the Demise of the Three-Decker Novel Paul Eggert , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Book History , vol. 6 no. 2003; (p. 127-146)
Robbery Under Arms : Our Most Famous Bushranger Deserved His Fate - Hanging - But His Exploits Made a Great Story A. C. Fraser , 1942 single work biography
— Appears in: Salt , 20 July vol. 4 no. 3 1942; (p. 2-6)
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Awards

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Last amended 1 Jul 2024 15:38:58
Subjects:
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Robbery Over Arms
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