Robbery Under Arms

By Rolf Boldrewood

Robbery Under Arms is a classic Australian novel by Rolf Boldrewood (a pseudonym for Thomas Alexander Browne). It was first published in serialised form by the Sydney Mail between July 1882 and August 1883, then in three volumes in London in 1888. It was edited into a single volume in 1889 as part of Macmillan's Colonial Library series and has not been out of print since. It is considered to be one of the greatest Australian colonial novels, along with Marcus Clarke's

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365351624

Rolf Boldrewood

Rolf Boldrewood was the pseudonym of Australian novelist Thomas Alexander Browne (1826-1915). Born in London, he settled with his family in Sydney in 1831 after his father, a shipmaster, delivered a group of convicts to Hobart, Tasmania. Educated at W. T. Cape’s school and Sydney College, Browne spent holidays with his friend John George Nathaniel Gibbes on Point Piper. At seventeen, he settled on land near Port Fairy to lead a life of squatting. This lasted until 1868, as consecutive bad seasons forced him to resettle in Sydney after twenty-five years away. Around this time, he began contributing articles on rural life to weekly Australian magazines, publishing his serialized novel The Squatter’s Dream in 1875. Using his pseudonym, he found success with bushranger novel Robbery Under Arms (1888), a story of survival and adventure set in the harsh Australian wilderness. While pursuing his literary interests, Browne held several government positions, including police magistrate, gold commissioner, and justice of the peace. After nearly three decades in Gulgong, Dubbo, Armidale, and Albury, he retired to Melbourne, where he spent the last twenty years of his life.