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This is the gripping real-life story of two young boys in the 19 th century sent by the British Government as impoverished and unwanted juveniles to exile to Van Diemen's Land in the world's first prison built exclusively for children.

Prejudice, moral panic, harsh justice and expedience saw unwanted boys condemned to severe isolation, solitary confinement, hard labour in chains and thrashings in a juvenile version of notorious Port Arthur, a ground-breaking chapter in the history of juvenile crime and punishment.

Some quietly endured in the hope of salvation through rudimentary trade and Biblical instruction, but others became relentlessly defiant and mutinous in a brotherhood of resistance and bullying, inexorably slipping from hope to hell.

Engrossing as a novel, this story of the death of childhood in the cradle of the world's mightiest empire, and the atmospheric tale of crime and punishment leading to a sensational murder trial is from another time but implicitly raises questions which remain with us today.This is the gripping real-life story of two young boys in the 19 th century sent by the British Government as impoverished and unwanted juveniles to exile to Van Diemen's Land in the world's first prison built exclusively for children.

Prejudice, moral panic, harsh justice and expedience saw unwanted boys condemned to severe isolation, solitary confinement, hard labour in chains and thrashings in a juvenile version of notorious Port Arthur, a ground-breaking chapter in the history of juvenile crime and punishment.

Some quietly endured in the hope of salvation through rudimentary trade and Biblical instruction, but others became relentlessly defiant and mutinous in a brotherhood of resistance and bullying, inexorably slipping from hope to hell.

Engrossing as a novel, this story of the death of childhood in the cradle of the world's mightiest empire, and the atmospheric tale of crime and punishment leading to a sensational murder trial is from another time but implicitly raises questions which remain with us today.
Steve Harris has thirty years experience in journalism, media and high-performance organisations. He is the only person to have been editorial head of both of Melbourne's major media groups- Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of The Age, and Editor-in-Chief of the Herald and Weekly Times Group. He was founding Editor of The Sunday Age, and has also been CEO of Melbourne FC and founding director of the Centre for Leadership and Public Interest, and served on the boards of the Australian Children's Television Foundation and Victorian Arts Centre. Solomon's Noose is his first book. He is also the author of The Prince and the Assassin.