The Black Police: A Story of Modern Australia

Vogan, A. J. (Arthur James), 1859-1948Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
594K words
Chapters
60

Tags

English Originals Social Fiction Violence and OrderColonial HistoryComplex HumanityPower OppressionCriminal PsychologySocial CritiqueExotic CultureSocial ObservationAustralian FrontierModern History

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Black Police: A Story of Modern Australia by A. J. VoganAuthor: Vogan, A. J. (Arthur James), 1859-1948,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 17, 2019

Editor's review

This work approaches the social fabric of colonial Australia through fiction, centering its narrative on the special group known as the "black police"; it offers both the tension of an adventure story and a literary observation of race relations and power structures. W organ, active from the mid-to-late nineteenth into the early twentieth century, writes with a clear mark of his era, and readers following the plot can sense the stances and limitations of colonial narrative. As a public-domain e-book from Project Gutenberg, its chief value lies in accessibility and the preservation of the original text, making it suitable material for understanding Australian colonial literature and historical imagination. It should not be read as strict historiography but rather as a literary text bearing the folds of history: one can read the conflicts and fates of characters at the story level and also reflect on how imperial narrative shaped "the other." It can be taken up during commutes, travel, or digital reading, and is also suited to comparative reading alongside materials on Australian history and postcolonial criticism.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents and chapter titles to grasp the main storyline before reading in detail.
  2. Prepare a timeline of Australian colonial history and compare it with the narrative background as you read.
  3. Record the book's depictions of the "black police" and make a critical review after reading.
  4. If English reading is difficult, read chapter summaries first, then return to key passages in the original.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60

FAQ

Is this book a historical work or a novel? The materials classify it under English literature, and the title states "A Story," so it is closer to a narrative work set against modern Australian history than to a strict historical monograph. It is best read as a literary text, with historical claims examined critically.
How difficult is the language, and is it suitable for non-native English readers? The original is in English and was written in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, so its sentence patterns and vocabulary bear the marks of the period; non-native readers may find it somewhat challenging. Reading chapter summaries first or using an annotated edition as support before gradually entering the original is advisable.
Why recommend reading this public-domain e-book? Project Gutenberg provides a free electronic text with a low barrier to access and preserves the original text, allowing readers to encounter firsthand colonial-era literary expression directly. For research or reading out of interest, it is a very low-cost entry point.
What should readers be alert to while reading? The book contains colonial-era stances and racial representations; today's readers should maintain critical distance and not treat the narrator's judgments as objective fact. It can be understood in comparison with postcolonial research and Indigenous historical materials.

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About the author

Vogan, A. J. (Arthur James), 1859-1948 Author

A. J. Vogan (Arthur James Vogan, 1859–1948) is an author about whose life very little is publicly known; his nationality, education and career cannot be established with confidence. What can be confirmed is that he wrote The Black Police: A Story of Modern Australia, the only work by him held in this collection. Judging from the title and subtitle, the book is set in modern Australia and deals with policing and social conditions in the colonial period, combining narrative storytelling with attention to real circumstances; it may thus be described as a literary treatment of Australian historical themes. Because biographical material is scarce, systematic scholarly study of Vogan and his work remains limited, and this book is the main basis for understanding his writing, whose choice of subject and narrative approach deserve examination in relation to colonial Australian history and literary writing.