| Ben Hall the Bushranger | |
| Author: | Frank Clune |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | Ben Hall |
| Genre: | historical novel |
| Set In: | colonial New South Wales |
| Publisher: | Angus and Robertson |
| Pub Date: | 1947 |
| Published: | Sydney |
Ben Hall the Bushranger is a 1947 Australian historical novel by Frank Clune about the bushranger Ben Hall. It tried to focus on Hall's motivations.[1]
He wrote this and Dark Outlaw as historical novels while researching his large non fiction book Wild Colonial Boys.[2] [3]
The West Australian said "the romance and adventure... make an attractive narrative."[4]
Smith's Weekly said Clune "can give you the scenes, he can describe their faces, their huts, their names and tneir clothes. He can give a detailed and very stirring account of their actions. But when it comes to explaining their insides and what makes them tick, he is lost; they all "revert to type"; and that is the difference between the Australian of Francis Ratcliffe and the Australian of Frank Clune's various books on travels through Australia."[5]
The Sunday Times said it was "not a very deep character analy-sis - about half-way between actions and basic motives. And in places the story lumbers and the intelligence of the reader is under-estimated by pointing out tacticns that are obvious by the dialogue. Nevertheless, the book is well worth a place on anybody's shelf, for its historical as well as its entertainment value."[6]
ABC Weekly declared "Frank Clune has used both hands to apply his colours, and if at times the story degenerates into something of the old penny-dreadful it is alwavs interesting."