The Trials of Isabella Mary Kelly: Her Legend and the Truth

Who was Isabella Mary Kelly? Media sensationalism and colourful folklore labeled her a wanton with a whip and a bitter sadistic hell-cat of a woman. Legends of her infamous adventures with convicts and bush rangers were told. With care and attention to detail, Maurie Garland strips back the layers of rumor and misinformation to reveal the truth about Isabella Mary Kelly, a woman alone in the unforgiving Australian outback of the mid-nineteeth century. Hers is a story of a woman ahead of her time, persecuted for her differences. A story of justice and society in the fledgling Australian colony. A story of challenge, prejudice, determination and pernicious crime; dramatic, unimaginable, scandalous - and entirely true.