They called me The Wildman - the prison diary of Henricke Nelsen (Pier 9) Hardcover          

	Henricke Nelsen depicted in his dwelling cave, on Mt Tallarook.     The Australasian Sketcher, 1880  - Selected for the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge,    2009, 2010, 2011  - Shortlisted for S.A. Premier's Literature Festival     Awards, 2010 (one of six in Fiction category, won     by David Malouf).

“I Henricke Nelsen lately of the Tallarooks, do hereby take it upon myself to write…” Thus begins Nelsen’s account of his strange and secret life hidden in the Tallarook Ranges. Here the Swede built an underground dwelling carefully concealing the entrance with a slab of stone – and he lived there undetected for some fourteen years until discovered in 1880. He was charged with vagrancy and sentenced to six months gaol, hard labour.
He was an exact contemporary of Ned Kelly who ranged in the same area and was hung while Nelson was in jail.

No imaginary work could arrange a better cast of characters – yet Henricke Nelsen and all these people are real historical figures who were in the area at this time.  This story painstakingly preserves actual names, dates, places and events to tell a real life adventure about colonial life that is as credible as it is historically informative.

REVIEWS: Sydney Morning Herald; Canberra Times; The Melbourne Age
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