A review taken from the cover of the book.

George Boxall was born in England, and came to Australia as a boy during the gold rushes. One of his ealiest memories was of watching the bushranger Frank McCallum, alias Captain Melville, being paraded in irons after his capture.

Boxhall's account of the Australian bushrangewrs was not completed until some fifty years later, during which time the author had consulted early newspaper reports and interviewed 'old-timers' who had met or known individual bushrangers.

His book is now regarded as the best-researched and most detailed history of its kind. Boxall experienced and began observing the 'bushranging era' at first hand, and his interpretation of the bushranger's role in the society of his day is generally conceded to be more reliable than the sometimes romantic speculations of later writers.

The Australian bushrangers were an unlikely mixture of wild, reckless, romantic or desparate men.

They included Pierce the cannibal; Scott, the mad preacher who became 'Captain Moonlite'; Jackie Jackie the 'gentleman bushranger'; bloodthirsty Dan Morgan; Ned Kelly, taunting the police in his iron armour.

George Boxall's classic history is the most comprehensive and accurate account of Australian bushranging,

Here are the real stories of the famous figures: the Kelly's, Ben Hall, Martin Cash, Mathew Brady, Captain Melville, Thunderbolt, Gardiner's gang and the Clarke brothers.

Here too, are the exploits of lesser-known but equally intriguing bandits; Edward Davis, the jewish bushranger of Coonabarabran; Alpin McPherson, the apprentice stonemason who terrorized Queensland; Fred Lowry, who uttered the immortal plea: "Tell'em I died game."

My Review of Chapter 20, page 141, "Captain Thunderbolt"

The chapter on Captain Thunderbolt is only 9 pages but is a well researched article on the exploits of Thunderbolt and, for the time it was written, is a fairly accurate version of the career of Thunderbolt. George Boxall's material is nearly always quoted in later books on all of the bushrangers as a benchmark for information on the "Australian Bushrangers". The book is a must read for anyone researching Australian Bushrangers and is available through most libraries in Australia.