![ned II](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ned-II-1.jpg)
The Notorious Widow Kelly
Mrs Kelly: The Astonishing Life of Ned Kelly’s Mother
by Grantlee Kieza
HarperCollins, 2017, 624 pages, $39.99
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In the past five years, there have been two published biographies of Ellen Kelly. Neither has shed much light on the mother of Ned Kelly, beyond portraying her as a long-suffering woman with a large family who was constantly hassled by the wicked police.
Despite what the publicity blurb promises on the cover of journalist Grantlee Kieza’s Mrs Kelly: The Astonishing Life of Ned Kelly’s Mother, the book fails to bring the reader any new knowledge. It is a rehash of the old Kelly myth of persecution and harassment of “the poor widow” Kelly. Kieza not only misrepresents Ellen and Ned’s dramatic story, he does so in an unashamedly partisan and melodramatic fashion:
A spirit of antagonism prevails between the [squatter] families in the grand country houses and the selectors in their bark-slab huts … For the Kellys and…
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