Solomon’s Noose: The True Story of Her Majesty’s Hangman of Hobart
Steve Harris
About the book
From the furthest corner of that foreign country, the past, comes the haunting story of the convict who became the British Empire’s youngest executioner.
'Beware the shock of the true.'
— Andrew Rule, award-winning journalist and author Impressive research and a story that challenges the imagination -- except that it’s true.
'A prisoner elects to become a hangman — to improve his lot in life. All this set against the Gothic world of Van Diemen’s Land in the time of convicts, bushrangers and rough justice.'
— Les Carlyon, best-selling author of Gallipoli and The Great War
The story of a young convict, Solomon Blay, who became Her Majesty's hangman in Van Diemen's Land; the man who personally had to deliver an Empire's judgment on 200 men and women, and endured his own noose of personal demons and demonisation in order to 'survive'; all in the context of the great struggles of good-evil, life-death, hope-despair, which drew the attention of Darwin, Twain, Trollope and Dickens as Van Diemans Land evolved from a Hades of Evil to sow the seeds of nationhood.
The book paints a vivid picture of the society and poverty from which Blay’s character was forged in England and the desperate, brutal nature of being a convict in Van Diemen’s Land. Solomon’s Noose is an important book in exposing the dark ‘underbelly’ in the formation of modern Australia.
Also available as an ebook on all platforms.
Also by Steve Harris:
The Lost Boys of Mr Dickens: How the British Empire turned artful dodgers into child killers
The Prince and The Assassin: Australia’s First Royal Tour and Portent of World Terror