The Boss of Taroomba

Australian outback had always fascinated the British colonial imagination when rags to riches stories of the British convicts and other social outcasts transformed the image of Australia as a gold digger's paradise (remember Abel Magwitch's story in Charles Dicken's Great Expectations?). This interaction which proved deadly for the aboriginal culture and population of Australia also impacted the British literature in a way that it had stories to tell of its incomprehensible wilderness and its inhabitants. This edition brings you an assorted collection of stories about the Australian outback and its people from the pen of a renowned British author – E. W. Hornung. Hornung had also lived and travelled in Australia for two years and unlike his contemporaries wrote a lot of stories with Australia in the background. E. W. Hornung (1866–1921) was an English author and poet and also brother-in-law to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Hornung is known for writing the A. J. Raffles series about a gentleman thief based on a deliberate inversion of the Sherlock Holmes series. Hornung dedicated his creation as a form of flattery to Doyle. Hornung's works are also remembered for giving insight into the social mores of late 19th and early 20th century British society.