Jerilderie Letter

The Jerilderie Letter is a handwritten document composed by Australian bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly in 1879. Described as "part autobiography, part manifesto", it is traditionally understood to have been dictated by Kelly to fellow gang member Joe Byrne, who may also have contributed to its composition. The letter is named after the town of Jerilderie, New South Wales, where the Kelly gang carried out an armed bank robbery in February 1879 and where Kelly tried to have the document published as a pamphlet.

The letter comprises 56 pages and 7,391 words. In it, Kelly traces his path to outlawry and justifies his actions, including the killings of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October 1878, which he portrays as an act of self-defence. Expressing hostility towards the police throughout the letter, Kelly alleges corruption, perjury and mistreatment of his family and other poor rural settlers in north-eastern Victoria, while also attacking wealthy landholders, the Victorian Government and the colonial justice system. The letter contains broader political and sectarian themes, including anti-English sentiments and a critique of British rule, drawing on Irish nationalist grievances and the Australian convict tradition of resistance. The letter concludes with calls for fairer treatment of the poor, alongside threats of widespread further violence against police, informants and civilians who assist or harbour them.

One of only two original Kelly letters known to have survived, it is a longer and more detailed version of the Cameron Letter, copies of which Kelly sent to a Victorian parliamentarian and the police following the gang's raid on Euroa, Victoria, in December 1878. Two copies were made of the Jerilderie Letter during Kelly's lifetime, one by publican John Hanlon and one by a government clerk. Due to political suppression, only summaries of its contents were published in the press; it was not published in full until 1930. Since then, the letter has been appraised as a significant work of Australian literature, with scholars noting its distinctive vernacular, rhetorical and poetic qualities. Its influence has extended into the arts, notably informing painter Sidney Nolan's 1946–47 Ned Kelly series and author Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel True History of the Kelly Gang (2000). The original letter is held at the State Library Victoria in Melbourne.