A Sweeping Saga

Jonathon Sweeping became Oliver Twist before Dickens was born. In a London slum, his young parents battled poverty, disease and heartache. Forget schooling. Shove the child up a chimney. Make young Sweeping a sweep. Threaten him, injure him but under no circumstances pay him. No wonder death and stealing dominated society when even children fronted the Old Bailey. What hope for the boy? Jonathon moved from prison hulk to convict ship to the other side of the world where Van Diemen's Land with its stunning natural beauty became a war zone. It was kill or be killed as genocide exploded. The boy became a man fighting injustice, cruelty and bushfires. He started a family and together they lived, loved and built a new nation in what became Tasmania. This is Jonathon Sweeping's sweeping saga.



A novel about crime and punishment in Britain in the 19th century, transportation to the the British colonies, and the war between the Europeans and indigenous Australians. The aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, later Tasmania, were murdered, captured, forcibly moved, and eventually died.