Danine O'leard. Voyage To Van Diemen's Land

Cover Type: Softcover
Book Condition: Fine
Jacket Condition: None Issued
Publisher: Self Published
Publisher Place:
Publisher Year: 2024
Edition: First Edition

Description: 242 pages. Book appears to have hardly been read and is in Fine condition throughout.

Publishers Description: Despite her innocence, from the moment Danine OLeary hears Judge Morleys pronouncement, Therefore, on this day, January thirtieth, in the year of Our Lord, eighteen forty-one, for the crime of stealing a lace handkerchief, I sentence you to seven years imprisonment, to be served on the convict ship, Hermina, and in Van Diemens Land, her life changes forever, as she is faced with the dark reality of the consequences of breaking the law in eighteenth-century England.On board Hermina, seventeen-year-old Danine is surrounded by unseemly characters like the murderous Geraldine, the bawd Nellie, and the distrustful Sally, all of whom have only known lives of poverty and ignorance in Dickensian London. However, she discovers she has one thing of value that can help her survive the journey. Growing up in Galway, Ireland, as the daughter of an Irish angler and a mother who runs a lodging house, her parents gave her a solid, basic education. As a result, she becomes the prison tutor, gradually gaining the respect of the ships captain and the foppish officer, Wickham, and the friendship of Sally and her young son Danny, the only child on board. It is this relationship that sustains Danine as Hermina sails into ever more alien waters.Living for six months at sea in the cramped, floating prison, Danine experiences unbearable hardships, including rape at the hands of a corrupt officer and unjust confinement in the coal hole, the lightless prison within a prison that breaks all but the strongest of its victims, as she witnessed in Geraldine, who did not survive its harsh environment. The horrors culminate in an onboard scourge of typhus that ravages the ships population, killing both Sally and Danny and leaving Danine feeling vulnerable and alone.Forced to carry on, Danine finds the strength to open up to the other convicts and, through her role as a prison tutor, learns more about their lives and experiences. During this process, she forms a bond with the sailors whore Nellie that leads to a moment of triumph, when, through Danines tutelage, Nellie learns to read her Bible and discover God, to the amazement of the Captain, Wickham, and even the dour Anglican vicar, Ebenezer Fox. Each of these three authority figures is quick to claim Danines victory as his own, with Wickham holding out the prospect of future marriage.The voyage turns the inexperienced Danine into an assertive, self-confident woman, as, through her challenges, she masters the strength to make her way in the strange, forbidding place known as Van Diemens Land. Upon docking in that far-off land, she sets aside the course others may have charted for her and starts on one she is determined will be of her choosing.

ISBN: 9798867065034