Simon’s Spellbinding Book

Paula Xiberras

Simon Barnard, the author of ’The A-Z of Convicts’ is a former Tasmanian. The book is a mammoth project of over 20 years of research including, many camping trips in Tassie. The volume captures in intricately-detailed illustrations by Simon himself, convicts and other characters in realistic poses.

Simon is a former art student who didn’t pursue his artistic studies finding that ‘the artist poses questions, while the illustrator answers them’.

The book aims and succeeds to be accessible to both adults and even reluctant younger readers, who might be challenged by a more textually and academically-dense volume. Such has the appeal been to younger readers and the encouragement for them to attempt illustration, that a young reader sent Simon a letter with his own illustrations.

One particularly fascinating area Simon explores is the rich history of The Ross Bridge in Tasmania, literally walking history as you encounter its carvings of people associated or related to the building of the bridge. There is also the symbolism inherent in the carving of a lion with a lamb underfoot thought to symbolise England (The Lion) and its dominance over the exiled convict (The Lamb).

Barnard also showcases a literary connection, the story of the convict Issac Solomon who was sent to Tasmania and is thought to be the inspiration for the character Fagin in Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’.

The book also contains lots of amazing trivia, perhaps overlooked by some texts; especially fascinating is Simon’s account of the Female Factory convicts and a particular group known as ‘The Flash Mob’, rebellious women who would dress up in forbidden jewellery and scarfs … and once completing their chores would ‘do their own thing’.

Such has been the success of this book that Simon is working on another book more specifically on convict tattoos, which is pardon the pun ‘lightly illustrated’ in this book.

In a time when we, as descendants no longer wish to wash away the ‘convict stain’, this book is a wonderful history for as wide as possible an audience. A nice touch is the alphabetical categorising of the topics included in the book.

The A-Z of Convicts Is out now published by Text Publishing.