Bücher von Hugh Capel

In the summer of 18S9,]ames leaves his sweetheart, Sally, to seek adventure as a stockman in the Snowy Mountains high country. Before the summer is over, the Kiandra gold rush has broken and his life has taken a direction he could never have foreseen. The Snowy River Diggings at Kiandra saw one of the shortest but most turbulent rushes in Australia's gold rush history. In April 1860, at the height of the rush, ten thousand men and women were scouring the district in search of gold. Within less than two years, the township that sprang up amongst the slush and snow had faded to a half-empty shanty town. For a brief period, Kiandra became the haunt of some of Australia's most notorious bushrangers, including Frankie Gardiner, and was so renowned for lawlessness and robberies that it was dubbed Mount Rascal. Disputes amongst the miners were rife. River men were pitched against ground sluicers and a mob of ruffians known as The Boys intimidated anyone who stood in their way. Complaints about Gold Commissioner Cooper's biased decisions and drunken antics eventually led to a Parliamentary Inquiry in 1862. James falls in with a young radical, Davy Hughes, who provokes the ire of The Boys and Commissioner Cooper by challenging their authority and championing against injustice. The arrival of Kitty McCrae changes Davy's and ]ames's lives forever. Sally joins the three of them briefly for summer, before the events of the following spring bring tragedy.';A very accurate and well researched history of Kiandra in the 1860/61 gold rush, interwoven with believable i ctional characters.' Paddy Kerrigan, Kiandra historian';Kiandra Gold is well named: it glitters like the mineral that lies at the heart of the story. And what a story: murder, love, mystery, the tough leathery life of the diggings in the high country, sublime scenery, and a gritty realisation of a world we have lost. Any historian would be proud to claim the research. I couldn't put it down.' Professor Iain McCalman, historian and author

Barcroft Boake's star blazed briefly and brightly as an Australian bush poet for little more than a year before he took his own life by hanging himself by his stockwhip in 1892 on the shore of Sydney Harbour. Barcroft's life was touched by romance, adventure and, finally, tragedy. In Where the Dead Men Lie, his story is told as an imaginative work of fiction, to bring the characters to life. Barcroft rode with Charlie McKeahnie, who is reputed to be one of the famed mountain horsemen Banjo Paterson had in mind when he wrote The Man From Snowy River. Barcroft also fell in love with Charlie's sisters. It has been suggested he killed himself for the love of a McKeahnie girl. After Barcroft left the McKeahnie homestead in 1888, he headed north, seeking excitement and adventure as a stockman and a drover, travelling as far as the Diamantina River in Queensland. Throughout his travels he wrote regularly to his father. Luckily, a number of his original and interesting letters have been preserved and they have been woven into the story. Was it May, or was it Jean McKeahnie that he truly loved? Why did he kill himself, just as he was gaining recognition as a poet? These are the questions this book tries to answer.