Front
cover design for the 2005 release of the fully
updated and revised literacy classic “Australian
Son” published by Network
Creative Services
Background
Max Brown passed away in September 2003. Toward the
end of his life he prepared this revised and
extended version of his classic account of the
Kelly gang, Australian Son. Max, like
many who emerged from the chaos and destruction
of World War II, entered the postwar world in
an immensely positive frame of mind. A new world
had to be created which would be better, and
wiser, having learned from the mistakes of the
past. Before long this positive view of the future
had been overwhelmed by the Cold War, but not
before certain creative achievements had taken
place. Max devoted a year of his time and most
of his savings to a period of research into the
life and times of the Kelly Gang.
He
wrote Australian Son in 1948. The book has
long been recognised as the classic account of a
turbulent, formative period in the history of Australia.
Since then, a number of other writers have produced
books on the Kelly outbreak, adding to the available
knowledge and the variety of possible viewpoints
on the celebrated events. Max decided to bring his
early classic up to date; those who know his first
account, or its 1956 revision, will find much that
is familiar in this version of the story, and quite
a lot that is new. Ironoutlaw.com are proud
to play their part in keeping alive a story, and
a telling of that story, which should never be forgotten.
The
following portrait of Max Brown by editor/author
Chester Eagle was written for Max’s latest
book on Charmian Clift and George Johnston entitled Charmian & George:
“Max Brown was a contemporary of George Johnston,
though he outlasted him by a third of a century.
Both went through World War 2, Johnston as correspondent
extraordinaire, Max in the RAAF, after which they
worked together on the Melbourne Argus and the Australasian
Post. George went to Sydney, together with Charmian,
to London, then the Greek islands, before their return
to Australia, in a personal evolution fascinating to
readers ever since. Max journeyed along another road.
He
took a year off to research Australian Son,
his classic life of Ned Kelly, he wrote novels,
he worked on papers from Sydney to Perth, and
numerous places in between. He was a great reader
and things he read stayed with him, hence the
extraordinary breadth of references that surface
in his writing, surprising the reader before
they disappear. His prose is naturally direct,
with the unexpected always lurking. He was scornful
of writers he considered elitist, and the basis
for this was his own remarkable breadth of sympathy,
particularly for those whose lives were lived
out of sight of cultural arbitrators, as can
be seen by reading the sketches in his Buttered
Toast (1999). Max died in Ballarat in September
2003.”
Dust
jacket from the 1980 Angus and Robertson Australian
Classics series which featured the re–release
of “Ned Kelly: Australian Son”
The
Book
Australian Son,
the first modern account of the Kelly outbreak,
was originally published in 1948. Works prior
to this tended to fall into bias categories either
for or against. Max
Brown’s
book was the work of an open-minded outsider
who’d put time and effort into studying
the events of the Gang’s lives on the ground,
in the caves, the ranges and the rough dwellings – wherever
the incidents occurred. Published by Georgian
House, Melbourne, 1948; revised edition, Georgian
House, 1956; Angus and Robertson Australian Classics,
1980; followed by this final revision, published
in 2005 by Network Creative Services Pty Ltd.
The
book has featured prominently in later examinations
of the story by authors and historians such as Ian
Jones, Keith McMenomy, and John McQuilton, among
others. Max Brown, having influenced other writers,
had read their work and felt that he needed to incorporate
later discoveries (some his own, some by associated
researchers) and later viewpoints on the events in
his own revised account. This revision includes the Jerilderie
Letter (whose title was first coined by Max),
published in the original 1946 edition of Australian
Son. The book also contains the Cameron
Letter, reprinted from J. J. Kenneally’s
1923 book The Inner History of the Kelly Gang.
Max
Brown
Max Brown has published the following books:
Australian Son: the story
of Ned Kelly (1948)
Wild Turkey (1958)
The Jimberi Track (1966)
The Black Eureka (1976)
Buttered Toast: Stories
and Sketches > Quinn
Tea (1999)
Charmian and George (2004)
Original dust
jacket from the 1956 Georgian House edition titled “Australian
Son, A Life of Ned Kelly”
The
Manuscript
Before Max Brown died in September 2003, he had spent
the good part of the last ten years rewriting his 1948
classic Australian Son. Eager to reintroduce
it into the twenty first century, Max had sourced new
material and updated many of this fine theory’s
and findings. His manuscript, however, was still in
a million pieces when he suffered a debilitating stroke.
Upon his death, Max’s close friend Chester Eagle
took it upon himself to undertake the mammoth task
of comparing the five surviving manuscripts (including
the one’s Max had given Brad Webb, Chester and
Ian Jones) page by page to determine which sections
were the most recent.
After
months of work the end result was then scanned using
OCR software. As Max had originally used an ancient
word processor (whose disks went missing during the
removal of his belongings from Stockton, New South
Wales to Sebastopol near Ballarat, Victoria) the
scanned pages were converted into a Microsoft Word
document which was carefully reread by Chester -
who compared the scanned page to the original, ensuring
a perfect transfer. The result was released in 2005
by Network
Creative Services to commemorate the
125 years of the death of Ned Kelly.
Buy
The Book
CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK.
Australian
delivery: $34.95 (including postage and handling)
Worldwide delivery:
$49.95 (including postageand handling)
Further
Reading
Max Brown biography:
from Australian
Son
1948 Book Review:
Max Brown’s Australian Son
Chapters
One and Two: from Australian
Son (PDF) |