Carolyn Erickson - The Girl From Botany Bay

In 1791, three years after being transported to Botany Bay with the First Fleet, Mary Broad - highway robber, wife and mother of two - achieved the impossible. With her husband and children and a group of desperate fellow convicts, she escaped the fledgling colony by stealing an open boat and sailing it from Sydney to the Dutch East Indies. For several months the fugitives enjoyed their freedom, until a betrayal led to their capture and arrangement were made to ship them back to England and the gallows.

Yet tales of the astonishing escape preceded Mary to London, and public sympathy was further aroused with the news that tragedy has befallen her family. When her case was taking up by James Boswell, a celebrity of the London literary world since the publication of his bestselling biography of Dr Johnson, events took a remarkable turn.

Critically acclaimed historian Carolly Erickson had brought Mary’s story vividly to life, illuminating the horrors of transportation and the hardships of the early penal settlement, and describing the gripping detail the extraordinary story of her escape. The Girl from Botany Bay combines all the fascination of our early history with page-turning drama.