Most of the illustrations used are a basic recycling of those used in Wannan, Prior and Nunn: A ·Pictorial of Bushrangers, published in 1966. Nothing new is added, a curious state of affairs for a book relying heavily on its illustrative material. Photos of Wild Wright and Tom Lloyd jnr., at least, should have been included. Even the illustrations’ captions are inaccurate. For example, the ‘discovery of Kennedy’s body’ is a police reconstruction, not the actual event. Not even this book’s low price makes it an attractive proposition. This was a book with enormous potential: it’s a pity that it was never realised.

The Kelly Years is a more successful book. It began as a series of radio programmes compiled by Jones, ‘a broadcaster and cartoonist’, and Bassett ‘an historical researcher and farmer’s wife’, for 3NE in Wangaratta, The radio programmes (and, by extension, the book) were devised as entertainment. This, the authors claim, precludes an index or bibliography. Precious few sources are given as well. This is disappointing because The Kelly Years has been obviously well researched, drawing on both primary and (particularly) secondary sources to give an accurate account of the Kellys, their times and their places.

 Although the authors attempt to avoid yet another retelling of the Kelly story, the narrative element is still strong, taking half the book’s chapters. This is probably unavoidable. The narrative is general and accurate but adds nothing new. However, the great value of The Kelly Years lies in its non-narrative chapters. Here, Jones and Bassett provide a much needed ‘companion’ to the Kelly story. Brief and accurate biographies of the leading figures in the Kelly Outbreak are provided in ‘Ned’s Mates’, ‘Ned’s Foes’, and in ‘The Years After’. ‘The Years After’ follows up the lives of leading figures in the Outbreak after 1880 although it respects the privacy of descendants of the clan and sympathisers and deals mainly with the officials involved in the Outbreak. ‘Ned’s Prisons’ and, even better, ‘Ned’s Pubs’ round out the ‘companion’ chapters. The authors also use the non-narrative chapters to weave into the book some interesting local history and local Kelly folklore (for example, Ned’s visit to Benalla’s oyster bar), and to summarise aspects of the Kelly legend identified by others.

The liveliest part of this book, though, is its third appendix where the authors take a spirited, and at times heated, exception to the Kelly Outbreak being seen as an example of social banditry, because, amongst other things Hobshawm’s model tends to obscure the criminal dimension of the Outbreak.

These two books, then, are chalk and cheese. Ned Kelly: A Pictorial History was hastily prepared and suffers for it. The Kelly Years succeeds as entertainment and gives the Kelly buff a handy ‘companion’ for the variety of personalities that people Kelly literature.