The Gold Escort: Robbery Trials
Australian History Reference Young Adult Non-Fiction Colonial History True Crime Legal History Bushranger Tales
The Gold Escort: Robbery Trials by Noel Thurgood is the 1988 first-edition hardcover that true-crime and Australian-history collectors keep on their “want” lists. Issued by the respected Kangaroo Press and housed in its original dust jacket, this vintage 144-page volume dissects the sensational 1852–53 hold-ups of the Mount Alexander gold escorts—heists that shook the Victorian goldfields and birthed Australia’s first great bushranger legends. Thurgood, a former barrister, reconstructs each trial from original court transcripts, newspaper scandals and police files, giving readers a seat in the crowded colonial courtroom while explaining how the robberies changed banking, transport and policing in the young colony.
What makes this copy especially appealing is its clean, tightly-bound condition: only light shelving wear to the jacket and a neat, anonymous gift inscription on the front pastedown—no book-plate, no underlining, no dog-eared pages. For educators, home-schoolers and young-adult readers the book doubles as an accessible textbook, pairing short chapters with maps, witness lists and a glossary of legal terms. Collectors value the scarce first printing (ISBN 9780864171337) because later reprints dropped the trial appendices and the striking gold-foil title stamping on the jacket spine.
Whether you’re hunting bush-rangers, researching colonial crime or curating an Australiana shelf, this copy delivers a riveting true story, rock-solid reference detail and the shelf presence only a 1980s Kangaroo Press hardcover can provide.
Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.
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