For the Term of His Natural Life (Imprint Classics). This item is unavailable.For the Term of His Natural Life (Imprint Classics)

For the Term of His Natural Life, written by Marcus Clarke, was published in 1874. Plot Summary : It is the best known novelisation of life as a convict in early Australian history. At times relying on seemingly implausible coincidences, the story follows the fortunes of Rufus Dawes... Structurally, For the Term of His Natural Life is made up of a series of semi-fictionalised accounts of actual events during the convict era, loosely bound together with the tragic story of its hero. Most of the incidents and many of the individual characters are easily identifiable from historical sources including Marcus Clarke's own non-fiction work Old Tales of a Young Country. The plot is based on the escape of Alexander Pearce, who ate his companions during two different escape attempts from the Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement on the West Coast, Tasmania. Typical of Victorian-era convict novels, Rufus Dawes, is a wrongfully convicted gentleman. Under the prevailing morality of the time, a murderer would have been inappropriate for a hero in popular fiction... story starts with a prologue, telling the tale of young British aristocrat, Richard Devine, who is the son of a shipbuilding magnate, Sir Richard Devine. In an incidence of domestic violence, Richard's mother reveals to Sir Richard that his son was fathered by another man, Lord Bellasis. Sir Richard proceeds to threaten the mother's reputation if Richard does not leave and never come back. He leaves him to pack for a while, claiming that he will fetch his lawyer to alter his will so that Richard receives no inheritance. When Richard leaves, he comes across a murder scene: his biological father Extrait of the book : Sir Richard Devine, knight, shipbuilder, naval contractor, and millionaire, was the son of a Harwich boat carpenter. Early left an orphan with a sister to support, he soon reduced his sole aim in life to the accumulation of money. In the Harwich boat-shed, nearly fifty years before, he had contracted—in defiance of prophesied failure—to build the Hastings sloop of war for His Majesty King George the Third’s Lords of the Admiralty. This contract was the thin end of that wedge which eventually split the mighty oak block of Government patronage into three-deckers and ships of the line; which did good service under Pellew, Parker, Nelson, Hood; which exfoliated and ramified into huge dockyards at Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Sheerness, and bore, as its buds and flowers, countless barrels of measly pork and maggoty biscuit. The sole aim of the coarse, pushing and hard-headed son of Dick Devine was to make money. He had cringed and crawled and fluttered and blustered, had licked the dust off great men’s shoes, and danced attendance in great men’s ante-chambers. Nothing was too low, nothing too high for him. A shrewd man of business, a thorough master of his trade, troubled with no scruples of honour or of delicacy, he made money rapidly, and saved it when made. The first hint that the public received of his wealth was in 1796, when Mr. Devine, one of the shipwrights to the Government, and a comparatively young man... Author's Biography : Marcus Clarke (24 April 1846-2 August 1881) was an English-born Australian novelist and poet, best known for his novel For the Term of His Natural Life. Marcus Clarke was born in London on 24 April 1846, the only child of William Hislop Clarke and Amelia Elizabeth née Mathews. In 1862 William was sent to Northumberland House because of a mental breakdown and died there a year later. Marcus Clarke was educated at Highgate School, where his classmates included Gerard Manley Hopkins. At age 17 he emigrated to Australia, where his uncle, James Langton Clarke, was a county court judge. He was at first a clerk in the Bank of Australia, but showed no business ability, and soon proceeded to learn farming at a station on the Wimmera River...

Marcus Clarke was born in London in 1846. As a result of the sudden death of his father he emigrated to Australia in 1863. He wrote for the Melbourne press and from 1868 to 1869 his first novel, LONG ODDS was serialised. He wrote plays, several of which were published, as well as collections of his stories and historical articles. He died in 1881.