The Ballad of Moondyne Joe

Moondyne Joe was colonial Australia's ultimate escape artist. His daring and repeated breakouts drove the Governor to build him a special cell. And when Moondyne Joe escaped again, he drove the Governor mad.Moondyne Joe himself died a pauper in Fremantle Lunatic Asylum but not before he gained notoriety as a lawbreaker, the husband of a brothel madam, a bushman who befriended local Indigenous people, and as a folk hero who championed the underdog.Written by John Kinsella, one of Australia's best known poets, and Niall Lucy, a caustic and irreverent social commentator, this book is an anarchic and playful examination of an elusive man and the harsh convict system he resisted.

John Kinsella is an award-winning poet and the author of volumes of short stories, novels, plays, and criticism. He is a professorial research fellow at the University of Western Australia, the Judith E. Wilson Fellow in poetry at Cambridge University, and the editor of The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry. Niall Lucy is a professor of critical theory at Curtin University and one of the founding editors of the international journal Ctrl-Z: New Media Philosophy. He is the author of A Derrida Dictionary and Pomo Oz: Fear and Loathing Downunder and the coauthor of The War on Democracy: Conservative Opinion in the Australian Press.