Fame came late in life to "Price Warung" and lasted scarcely ten years. That decade of the 1890s, however, was crucial for the political and literary development of Australia, and in both spheres Warung played a prominent part. A fervent advocate of reform, he wrote political leaders in the local press and organized a people's convention in Bathurst in 1896 to debate the nation's future. To the reading public, however, he was best known as the author of almost a hundred stories about "the System"--his term for the interlocking structures that enforced the convict system. It embraced judiciary, clergy, governors, jailers, a host of ancillary occupations, and felons. An abstraction with hideously concrete components, the System in Warung's depictions is tenacious, self-regulating, and virtually indestructible because it battens on mankind's worst predilections. With his vivid, melodramatic tales, Warung was one of the most prolific contributors to the Sydney...