The exploits of the Ned Kelly gang have entered legend. Seen now as a sort of Australian Robin Hood, and immortalised on screen by none other than Mick Jagger, and in paint by the great Australian artist Sidney Nolan, the reality - as related in this contemporary book written soon after the events it describes - was less romantic and more sordid than the myth. Kelly and his band were Irish 'larrikins' who preferred a career of brutal crime to honest toil. They operated as mounted bushrangers across the state of Victoria and brought terror to the outback with a string of armed robberies and...