" English Passengers, a first novel by Matthew Kneale, relates what follows when a group of Englishmen arrive in mid-nineteenth-century Tasmania with different purposes: to find the Garden of Eden, to prove the natives are less intelligent than the British, and to escape from British law. Kneale also describes the tragic life of a young Aboriginal whose experiences are shaped by the arrival of the British. "

― Nancy Pearl , Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason