English passengers

Acclaim for Matthew Kneale’s
English Passengers

‘‘As horrifying as it is funny.’’

— Los Angeles Times

‘‘English Passengers
is an old-fashioned book in the best sense:
epic in scale, crammed with outsize characters, set in a long
ago time and a faraway place.’’

— Entertainment Weekly

‘‘Some novels are to be savored while curling up in front of a roaring fire. Matthew Kneale’s robust and rollicking historical novel
English Passengers
is one of them…. So get com-fortable—and be prepared to enter a fascinating world.’’

— New York Post

‘‘
English Passengers
is what fiction ought to be: ambitious, narrative-driven, with a story and a quest we don’t mind going on. On page after page I found myself laughing or nodding or simply envious. I was compelled from first to last, and beyond. The characters are still living with me.’’

—Nicholas Shakespeare, author of Bruce Chatwin and The Dancer Upstairs

‘‘Every page fizzes with linguistic invention, and the interleav
ing of high comedy with dramatic terror is expertly
handled.’’

— The Guardian

‘‘Although it contains much that is harrowing,
English Passengers
is also often hilarious. Tart wit generates caustically funny scenes. Relishably ironic fates are dealt out to the book’s more dislikable characters.’’

— The Times (London)

‘‘Hilarious….
[English Passengers]
expresses in picaresque form the birth of a nation. And for all its outrageous volatility, the whole bloody mess rings true.’’

— The San Diego Union-Tribune

‘‘Robust intellectual entertainment: a comic sea adventure,
survival tale and quest for the Garden of Eden all bound in
one.’’

— The Globe and Mail(Toronto)

‘‘Sometimes a book comes along so full of wit and charm that it makes you glad you learned to read. Matthew Kneale’s historical novel
English Passengers
is that kind of book.’’

— The Houston Chronicle

Matthew Kneale

English Passengers

Matthew Kneale lives in Italy.
English Passengers
is his American debut.

Note of Thanks

I
WOULD LIKE
to thank Southern Arts, and also the Arts Council of England, for the grants they have kindly provided. This novel would not have been possible without their generous help.

Note on Language

O
NE OF THE CHARACTERS
in this novel is a Tasmanian aboriginal. When I wrote his sections my intention was to portray someone intelligent and interested in words, who is from a culture wholly remote from that of white men but has been educated by them, absorbing English phrases, both formal and informal, that were common in the 1830s. He does not sound like a modern mainland Australia aboriginal speaker, nor is meant to: my hope was to depict a particular character from this distant time.