A Convict's Tour to Hell single work   poetry   satire   "You prisoners of New South Wales,"
First known date: 1839 Issue Details: First known date: 1839... 1839 A Convict's Tour to Hell
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

For discussion of the various versions of this poem and the history of its compilation see Frank the Poet by Meredith and Whalen (1979). Several manuscript versions exist in the Mitchell library - ML MSS 7266, A 649, A 807 and C 967 (digitised copy: of this available)

Notes

  • Author's note: Composed at Stroud A.A. Co. Establishment Station, New South Wales. Composed and written October 23rd day, Anno 1839.
  • Epigraph: Nor can the foremost of the sons of men/ Escape my ribald and licentious pen (Swift).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

      ca. 1832-1839 .
      Link: U2145Digitised copy of original Sighted: 24/09/2023
      (Manuscript) assertion

      Holdings

      Held at: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW
      Local Id: C967
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Frank the Poet : The Life and Works of Francis MacNamara Francis MacNamara , John Meredith (editor), Rex Whalan (editor), Ascot Vale : Red Rooster Press , 1979 Z50146 1979 selected work criticism poetry biography The first collection of poems by Frank MacNamara, this work is divided into two parts - part one dealing with the poet's life and part two with his works, accompanied by detailed critical notes. Ascot Vale : Red Rooster Press , 1979 pg. 45-51
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse Les Murray (editor), Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1986 Z427532 1986 anthology poetry Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1986 pg. 23-28
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Irish-Australian Connection An Caidream Gael-Astralach Seamus Grimes (editor), Gearoid O Tuathaigh (editor), Galway : University College Galway , 1988 Z990193 1988 anthology criticism Galway : University College Galway , 1988 pg. 71-77
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads [1993] Elizabeth Webby (editor), Philip Butterss (editor), Ringwood : Penguin , 1993 Z136407 1993 anthology poetry humour satire Ringwood : Penguin , 1993 pg. 48-54
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse Les Murray (editor), Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1986 Z427532 1986 anthology poetry South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1996 pg. 23-28
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A Working Forest : Selected Prose Les Murray , Potts Point : Duffy and Snellgrove , 1997 Z536744 1997 selected work prose autobiography review column criticism obituary This selection consists of essays and reviews from The Australian Year, Doubletake, three earlier prose selections - The Peasant Mandarin, Persistence in Folly and Blocks and Tackles - and some previously uncollected work. Potts Point : Duffy and Snellgrove , 1997 pg. 365-370
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology John Leonard (editor), Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 Z461207 1998 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) A thorough survey of poetry by Australians in English, beginning with a selection of contemporary work by younger poets, and going backward in time to the early colonial period. In addition to poems in the literary tradition, it indudes performance poetry, convict songs and old bush ballads. An extensive selection has been provided from the work of five major twentieth-century poets: Les Murray, Gwen Harwood, Judith Wright, A.D. Hope and Kenneth Slessor. Several features are provided to assist the reader: the date of first publication of each poem is provided; footnotes explain unfamiliar words and allusions; and brief biographical notes assist in locating each poet in his or her place in time. Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 pg. 378-383
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Turning Wave : Poems and Songs of Irish Australia Colleen Burke (editor), Vincent Woods (editor), Armidale : Kardoorair Press , 2001 Z929605 2001 anthology poetry Armidale : Kardoorair Press , 2001 pg. 10-15
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Hell and After : Four Early English-Language Poets of Australia Les Murray (editor), Manchester Petersham : Carcanet ETT Imprint , 2005 Z1219692 2005 anthology poetry prose Manchester Petersham : Carcanet ETT Imprint , 2005 pg. 12-18
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon An Anthology of Australian Poetry to 1920 John Kinsella (editor), Nedlands : University of Western Australia Library , 2007 Z1908582 2007 anthology poetry column prose Nedlands : University of Western Australia Library , 2007 pg. 95-102
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature Nicholas Jose (editor), Kerryn Goldsworthy (editor), Anita Heiss (editor), David McCooey (editor), Peter Minter (editor), Nicole Moore (editor), Elizabeth Webby (editor), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009 Z1590615 2009 anthology correspondence diary drama essay extract poetry prose short story (taught in 23 units)

    'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

    'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

    'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

    'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

    'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

    Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.

    Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009
    pg. 83-89
Alternative title: A Tour to Hell
First line of verse: "Ye prisoners of New South Wales" First known date: ca. 1857
Notes:
This version entitled 'A Tour to Hell' is a reprint from the Cumberland Times, December 27, 1900 in which the poem is prefaced by an editorial comment indicating that this was the first time the poem had ever been published. A second note at the end of the poem discusses the authorship of the poem. It was posthumously copied by a Mr Thomas Holdstock from the dictation of an assigned servant who had worked with the author and memorised the poem. The manuscript was lent to the editor of the Cumberland Times, J. Whitley, in 1857. Whitley's note is dated April, 1885.
Notes:
This version of the poem has no author's note or epigraph.

Works about this Work

Antipodean Rewritings of Great Expectations : Peter Carey's Jack Maggs (1997) and Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip (2007) Janet Wilson , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Shadow of the Precursor 2012; (p. 220-235)
'Counter-discourse theory urges readings of postcolonial fictions that are renarrativisations of canonical texts of empire in terms of their strategies of resistance. Recent novels by Peter Carey and Lloyd Jones amply acknowledge their debt to their precursor, Charles Dickens Great Expectations, but this chapter argues that the contestatory imperial relationship is overlaid with the equally compelling theme of postcolonial home and belonging. Carey exploits the oppositional "writing back" paradigm; Jones, by contrast, makes veneration of the Dickensian text central to his plot. Both, however, can also be described as diasporic novels in their preoccupation with the colony as home, as their colonial protagonists, after a fraught encounter with their Victorian heritage in the metropolitan centre of London, find their destiny/destination in the "return." Although this diasporic reading reiterates the familiar binaries of metropolitan centre and colonial periphery, it repositions the filial relationship as one of postcolonial habitation and settlement.' (220)
A Sense of Industrial Place -- The Literature of Newcastle, New South Wales, 1797-1997 Julian Croft , 1999 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 13 no. 1 1999; (p. 15-20)
A Folk Inferno Les Murray , 1990 single work criticism biography
— Appears in: Blocks and Tackles : Articles and Essays 1982 to 1990 1990; (p. 137-150) The Paperbark Tree : Selected Prose 1992; (p. 317-328) A Working Forest : Selected Prose 1997; (p. 360-371)
The Narrow-Columned Middle Ground : 19th Century Australian Poetry Les Murray , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: Blocks and Tackles : Articles and Essays 1982 to 1990 1990; (p. 1-32) The Paperbark Tree : Selected Prose 1992; (p. 222-250) A Working Forest : Selected Prose 1997; (p. 282-308)
Frank the Poet : A Postscript John Meredith , 1987 single work biography
— Appears in: Overland , June no. 107 1987; (p. 62-66)
Antipodean Rewritings of Great Expectations : Peter Carey's Jack Maggs (1997) and Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip (2007) Janet Wilson , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Shadow of the Precursor 2012; (p. 220-235)
'Counter-discourse theory urges readings of postcolonial fictions that are renarrativisations of canonical texts of empire in terms of their strategies of resistance. Recent novels by Peter Carey and Lloyd Jones amply acknowledge their debt to their precursor, Charles Dickens Great Expectations, but this chapter argues that the contestatory imperial relationship is overlaid with the equally compelling theme of postcolonial home and belonging. Carey exploits the oppositional "writing back" paradigm; Jones, by contrast, makes veneration of the Dickensian text central to his plot. Both, however, can also be described as diasporic novels in their preoccupation with the colony as home, as their colonial protagonists, after a fraught encounter with their Victorian heritage in the metropolitan centre of London, find their destiny/destination in the "return." Although this diasporic reading reiterates the familiar binaries of metropolitan centre and colonial periphery, it repositions the filial relationship as one of postcolonial habitation and settlement.' (220)
The Narrow-Columned Middle Ground : 19th Century Australian Poetry Les Murray , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: Blocks and Tackles : Articles and Essays 1982 to 1990 1990; (p. 1-32) The Paperbark Tree : Selected Prose 1992; (p. 222-250) A Working Forest : Selected Prose 1997; (p. 282-308)
A Folk Inferno Les Murray , 1990 single work criticism biography
— Appears in: Blocks and Tackles : Articles and Essays 1982 to 1990 1990; (p. 137-150) The Paperbark Tree : Selected Prose 1992; (p. 317-328) A Working Forest : Selected Prose 1997; (p. 360-371)
Frank the Poet : A Postscript John Meredith , 1987 single work biography
— Appears in: Overland , June no. 107 1987; (p. 62-66)
A Sense of Industrial Place -- The Literature of Newcastle, New South Wales, 1797-1997 Julian Croft , 1999 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 13 no. 1 1999; (p. 15-20)
Last amended 24 Sep 2023 08:08:04
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