The Kelly Hunters

{{Short description|1954 book by Frank Clune}} {{Italic title}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2026}} {{Use Australian English|date=May 2026}}

'''''The Kelly Hunters''''' is a 1954 Australian book by Frank Clune about the hunt for bushranger Ned Kelly.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168410805 |title=A NEW LIGHT ON NED KELLY |newspaper=Truth |issue=3362 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=4 July 1954 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=42 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article117408654 |title=BOOKS and Comment |newspaper=The Farmer and Settler |volume=L |issue=13 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=17 December 1954 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=20 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

The book sold very well.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107755291 |title=Australian Books Now the Best Sellers |newspaper=The Muswellbrook Chronicle |volume=35 |issue=6 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=25 January 1955 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

''The Sun-Herald'' said "Indefatigable researcher and skilled storyteller, Clune presents Ned Kelly neither as the persecuted hero of one legend nor the bloodthirsty ruffian of another, but as an intelligible and highly intelligent human being."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28663568 |title=CANDID COMMENT |newspaper=The Sun-Herald |issue=306 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=5 December 1954 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=30 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

The ''Sydney Morning Herald'' said "the main points of the Kelly story have been brought out more clearly than ever before."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18446553 |title=BOOKS OF THE WEEK |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |issue=36,503 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 December 1954 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=12 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

The ''Advertiser'' said "All this is good, robust stuff, bright and bustling history well seasoned with drama and a touch of moralising. Clune, in fact, has made of the Kelly story a picturesque novel grafted with the sombre inevitability of a Greek tragedy. As history, it must have some value, and as an epic yarn it has a great deal."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47621101 |title=The Ironclad Bushranger |newspaper=The Advertiser (Adelaide) |volume=97 |issue=30,009 |location=South Australia |date=18 December 1954 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

''The Bulletin'' called it "by far the fullest account of the Kellys yet published, fascinating if poorly written in its detail, and contains a mass of rough-and-ready research... But it is too obviously and naively partisan to be accepted anywhere as reliable."<ref>{{Citation | title=Clune on Ned Kelly | journal=The Bulletin | date=9 March 1955 | location=Sydney, N.S.W | publisher=John Haynes and J.F. Archibald | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-688073157 | id=nla.obj-688073157 | access-date=2 April 2024 | via=Trove }}</ref>

Clune adapted his book into 1962's ''Ned Kelly's Last Stand'' and 1981's ''Frank Clune's Ned Kelly''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article126825077 |title=Overview of Kellyana |newspaper=The Canberra Times |volume=55 |issue=16,592 |location=Australian Capital Territory, Australia |date=1 March 1981 |accessdate=2 April 2024 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly Hunters}} Category:1954 non-fiction books Category:Australian non-fiction books Category:Angus & Robertson books Category:Ned Kelly Category:Biographies about bushrangers Category:Books by Frank Clune