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Authors: Carole Wilkinson

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The last photo of Ned, taken the day before he was hanged.

Timeline

Acknowledgements

There are many differing versions of the story of the Kelly Gang. For the sequence of events in my book I have mainly used the books
Ned Kelly: A Short Life
by Ian Jones and
Ned Kelly: The Authentic Illustrated History
by Keith McMenomy as references. I am indebted to these historians for their years of thorough and dedicated research starting at a time when research was much more difficult than it is today and important documents were hidden in the depths of the Public Record Office Victoria.

My task in researching the Kelly story for this book was easy: the Public Record Office Victoria has put the key Kelly documents on the Internet; the newspapers of the day are all on microfilm; at the time I was writing, the Old Melbourne Gaol staged the biggest Ned Kelly exhibition ever put together; the careful referencing of Mr Jones and Mr McMenomy led me to important newspaper items and less obvious books.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Jones, Mr McMenomy, the Public Record Office Victoria, the National Trust of Australia and the staff at the State Library of Victoria for making the research for this book a pleasurable and stress-free experience.

Internet sites

The Victorian Public Records Office has a large collection of Kelly documents.

There is an online description of the collection with links to digital images at

http://prov.vic.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/ned-kelly

The State Library of Victoria has a collection of Kelly images which you can view online through the catalogue at

http://search.slv.vic.gov.au

Type Ned Kelly in the search box and select Pictures from the
I want to search
drop-down menu.

There is a link to a digitised version of the Jerilderie Letter at

http://slv.vic.gov.au/our-collections/treasures-curios/jerilderie-letter

Also if you can visit the State Library of Victoria, Ned’s armour and a page or two from the original Jerilderie Letter are on permanent display as part of the free exhibition The Changing Face of Victoria in the Dome Gallery.

There are many websites about Ned. One that has a lot of resources, including a digital archive of newspaper articles is the Ned Kelly Australian Iron Outlaw website.

www.ironoutlaw.com

The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine website has detailed information about the identification of Ned’s body.

http://www.vifm.org/forensics/the-ned-kelly-project/

Sources

Black Dog Books acknowledges the assistance of the Victorian Police Historical Unit; Matt Shore at
Ned: The Exhibition
; the State Library of Victoria; the Public Record Office Victoria; and private collectors for allowing us to reprint the following images in
Black Snake: The Daring of Ned Kelly
.

Ned in boxing trunks:
Private Collection

Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick:
Victorian Police Historical Unit

Dan Kelly:
La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

Joe Byrne:
Private Collection

Steve Hart:
La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

The clearing at Stringybark Creek:
Victorian Police Historical Unit

Plain-clothed policemen involved in the hunt for the Kelly Gang:
Victorian Police Historical Unit

£8000 Reward Poster:
Victorian Police Historical Unit

Armour made by Kelly Gang:
La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

Reproduced with the permission of the Keeper of Public Records, Public Record Office Victoria, Australia:

Ned’s prison record, Ned aged 15:
PROV VPRS 4966/P Kelly Historical Collection, Unit 1

Cover:
PROV VPRS 937/P Inward Registered Correspondence, Unit 272

The last photo of Ned:
PROV VPRS 515/P Central Register of Male Prisoners, Unit 17

About the Author

Carole Wilkinson is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning Dragonkeeper series as well as over thirty other much-loved books. She has a fascination with dragons and is interested in the history of everything, so much so that she finds it difficult to stop researching and begin writing. Carole is married and has a daughter, and she lives in inner-city Melbourne.

First published in 2002
by Black Dog Books
an imprint of Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd
Locked Bag 22, Newtown
NSW 2042 Australia
www.walkerbooks.com.au

This ebook edition published in 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Text © 2002 Carole Wilkinson
Cover image © 2005 Mark Chew

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Wilkinson, Carole, 1950– author.
Black snake / Carole Wilkinson.
Series: The Drum.
Subjects: Kelly, Ned, 1855-1880 – Juvenile literature.
Bushrangers – Australia – Biography – Juvenile literature.
364.1552092
ISBN: 978-1-922244-91-8 (ePub)
ISBN: 978-1-922244-90-1 (e-PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-922244-92-5 (.PRC)