The Ship Wife

Author: Anne Vines

The Ship Wife challenges assumptions about female convict history. It tells the story of a real woman's struggle for dignity and independence in an Empire built on slavery and injustice.

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Summary

The Ship Wife challenges assumptions about female convict history. It tells the story of a real woman's struggle for dignity and independence in an Empire built on slavery and injustice.

Description

In 1795 Ireland, young housemaid Elizabeth is arrested, charged and convicted of sedition. On the transport ship, confined to the captain's cabin, Elizabeth must please and obey him. As his ship wife, she survives one of the most notorious transportation voyages to New South Wales. Six convicts are flogged to death. This so exceeds the usual brutality of transportation that Governor Hunter convenes a magistrate's court to hear charges against the captain. Shunned by her fellow convicts, scorned by free settlers, and pregnant with the captain's child, Elizabeth must establish a home and a life in rough Sydney Town. The Ship Wife challenges assumptions about female convict history. It tells the story of a real woman's struggle for dignity and independence in an empire built on slavery and injustice.

Critic Reviews

"The Ship Wife brings to burgeoning life Irishwoman Elizabeth Rafferty, her determined, shrewd survival of casual, brutal usage, by a succession of masters, to prosper as a pardoned convict in New South Wales and later Hobart Town. With enviable skill, Anne Vines makes vibrantly real Elizabeth's abasement and recovery, her joys, terrors, loves and losses, in this finely-woven tissue of beguiling detail, rich in historical fact and lyrical invention." - Cath Kenneally, journalist, broadcaster, novelist, award-winning poet, author of Room Temperature and Around Here

"Meticulously researched and deeply empathetic, this is an unforgettable story of a woman who overcomes impossible odds to survive." - Toni Jordan, author of Prettier if She Smiled More

About the Author

Gemma White is a poet living in Melbourne, Australia. Her first collection of poetry, Furniture is Disappearing, was published in 2014 by IP. She shares her knowledge of poetry on her website, where she offers a free 5-day email poetry course. You can also sign up on her website to receive her e-newsletter for her latest writing news. Gemma has been published in many Australian literary magazines and journals, including Best Australian Poems. She also studied poetry at The University of Melbourne and The University of Edinburgh.