Convicts in Australia Magwitch, a main character of Charles Dickens' 1861 novel "Great Expectations". The most famous convict novel is Marcus Clarke's "For the Term of His Natural Life" (1874), followed by John Boyle O'Reilly's "Moondyne" (1879). "The Broad Arrow" by Caroline Woolmer Leakey was one of the first novels to depict the convict experience, and one of the only to feature a female convict as its protagonist (Marcus Clarke drew on Leakey's book in writing "For the Term of His Natural Life"). Thomas Keneally explores the convict era in his novels "Bring Larks and Heroes" (1967) and "The Playmaker" (1987). Convicts feature
Abel Magwitch most of the guilt on Magwitch, who realized that Compeyson had always intended to scapegoat him should they be caught. Dickens has Compeyson's attorney hammer the point home: In the end, Magwitch is condemned to fourteen years' imprisonment, while Compeyson receives seven. Magwitch and Compeyson are imprisoned on the same prison ship. Magwitch attempts to kill Compeyson. He is taken to the black hole (a solitary confinement cell) after landing his first punch, but he manages to escape some time around Christmas of 1812. The novel begins with young Pip visiting the graves of his parents and brothers, where he