Sister Kate

The outlaw bushranger Ned Kelly is an Australian legend. But what about his sister, Kate? How do you live in the shadow of a legend?


In this sensuous, vital and compelling novel, Kate tells her own tale. It is the story of an expert horsewoman who rode through the bush to deliver supplies to her brother and his gang; the story of a young woman who fell in love with a man marked for death by the police; and the story of the destruction of a family and the tragic price of notoriety.


‘Out of the male past, Bedford fashions a disturbing figure, the female inheritor who broods over the Kelly legend ... Sister Kate has simplicity and energy, moving swiftly and surely through a life held in the custody of the past.’ — Helen Daniel, The Age


Jean Bedford’s other works include the short story collection Country Girl Again: Stories (1979) and Love Child (1986). She is the co-editor, with Linda Funnell, of The Newtown Review of Books. Sister Kate was first published in 1982.