Gould’s Book of Fish

Once upon a time that was called 1828, before all fishes in the sea and all living things on the land were destroyed, there was a man named William Buelow Gould, a white convict who fell in love with a black woman and discovered too late that to love is not safe.

Silly Billy Gould, invader of Australia, liar, murderer & forger, condemned to the most feared penal colony in the British Empire and there ordered to paint a book of fish.

Once upon a time, there were miracles…

Gould’s Book Of Fish, Richard Flanagan’s Commonwealth Prize-winning classic, is published here for the first time in Vintage Classics.

‘A work of significant genius’ — Chicago Tribune