Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book

Hot Search

Morgan's Run

colleen mccullough

... Show More
In a story of breathtaking scope, Colleen McCullough returns to the magnificent setting of her international bestseller The Thorn Birds.

Following the disappearance of his only son and the death of his beloved wife, Richard Morgan is falsely imprisoned and exiled to the penal colonies of eighteenth-century Australia. His life is shattered but Morgan refuses to surrender, overcoming all obstacles to find unexpected contentment and happiness in the harsh early days of Australia's settlement.

From England's shores to Botany Bay and the rugged frontier of a hostile new world, Morgan's Run is the epic tale of love lost and found, and the man whose strength and character helped settle a country and define its future.

Cover Artist: Tom Hallman

832 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,2000
Places
england, australia, 

This edition

Format
832 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
January 1, 2002 by Pocket Books
ISBN
9780671024185
ASIN
0671024183
Language
English

More editions

About the author

Profile Image for colleen mccullough

colleen mccullough

... Show More
Colleen Margaretta McCullough was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds and Tim.

Raised by her mother in Wellington and then Sydney, McCullough began writing stories at age 5. She flourished at Catholic schools and earned a physiology degree from the University of New South Wales in 1963. Planning become a doctor, she found that she had a violent allergy to hospital soap and turned instead to neurophysiology – the study of the nervous system's functions. She found jobs first in London and then at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

After her beloved younger brother Carl died in 1965 at age 25 while rescuing two drowning women in the waters off Crete, a shattered McCullough quit writing. She finally returned to her craft in 1974 with Tim, a critically acclaimed novel about the romance between a female executive and a younger, mentally disabled gardener. As always, the author proved her toughest critic: "Actually," she said, "it was an icky book, saccharine sweet."

A year later, while on a paltry $10,000 annual salary as a Yale researcher, McCullough – just "Col" to her friends – began work on the sprawling The Thorn Birds, about the lives and loves of three generations of an Australian family. Many of its details were drawn from her mother's family's experience as migrant workers, and one character, Dane, was based on brother Carl.

Though some reviews were scathing, millions of readers worldwide got caught up in her tales of doomed love and other natural calamities. The paperback rights sold for an astonishing $1.9 million.

In all, McCullough wrote 11 novels.

Source: http://www.people.com/article/colleen...

Readers also enjoyed

Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
35(35%)
4 stars
33(33%)
3 stars
32(32%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Angel_Apocalypse
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
Rašau atsiliepimą įpusėjusi knygą. Puikiai parašyta baisiai man neįdomi knyga. Aš ją toliau skaitau dėl to, kad (1) retai nebaigiu skaityti knygų, (2) ji nėra bloga per se, (3) dėmesingumo (mindfulness) praktikai, nes, skirtingai nuo dažnos šiuolaikinės literatūros, čia gausu tiesiog buvimo čia, aplinkos, veiksmų aprašymų, bet ne pačio veiksmo.
O neįdomi ji man tikriausiai dėl to, jog aš visai nepatikėjau pagrindiniu veikėju - Ričardu Morganu. Aš negaliu patikėti, kad gali egzistuoti toks su gyvenimo negandomis susitaikantis žmogus.
O gal aš tai vadinu susitikymu, nes knyga parašyta taip, kaip mes žiūrime filmą - matome tik judesį, bet nematome išgyvenimų ir kas verda galvoje. Nes kas verda Ričardo galvoje ir širdyje perteikta labai paviršutiniškai, o tai kas perteikta manęs visai neįtikina. Aš dėl prisvilusios vakarienės daugiau pergyvenu, nei kad Ričardas dėl savo gyvenimo duobių.

O dabar atsiliepimas praėjus kiek laiko po šios knygos užvertimo. Kaip sunkiai ji man skaitės (ją beskaitydama perskaičiau dar 3 knygas pailsėjimui nuo Morgano kelio), tačiau nesigailiu, kad ji pateko man į rankas. Morgano pradine versija niekaip netikiu ir dabar, kažkaip keistai neįtikinamai autorė jį perteikė jo kelio pradžioje. Tačiau istorinis knygos aspektas buvo labai įdomus. Sunkiai įsivaizduojamas iš šių laikų perspektyvos.
Smulkmena, tačiau užstrigo vieta, kuri šiems laikams vargiai suvokiama: kai Morgano paklausė, ar nenorėtum nusiųsti laiško artimiesiems, nes tuo išplauks laivas, jis atsakė "ne šį kartą". Kitas kartas pasitaikys gal po pusmečio ar po metų, artimieji laišką gaus dar po metų. Mums, elektroninių laiškų kasdienybėje, toks tempas ir toks laiko vertinimas - nesuprantamas.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
hydreg
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
2.5 Kantrybės pareikalavęs istorinis grožinis romanas. 800 puslapių - ryškiai per daug, pilnai būtų užtekę ir pusės tiek. Veiksmas rutuliojosi lėtai, nuobodžiai ir be intrigos, o perdėto, sauso detalizavimo (pvz. transportinio laivo grandininio siurblio veikimo principo aprašymas) gausa varė į neviltį. Nors ir be entuziazmo, romaną vis dėlto įveikiau. Autorė tikrai atliko didelį darbą parašiusi tokią knygą, o ir aš praturtėjau žiniomis apie Australijos kolonizavimą. Pagarba mums abiem :)
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Kyuberu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
This is the story of Richard Morgan, a convict who spent twelve months on the seas and how this kind of people were used in order to populate an unknown continent. With the advent of the American Revolution has closed the New World to England’s prisoners.

The author thus describes the 18th century England’s colonization of Australia with the foundation of a new prison colony of n  
nBotany Bay - the same place where Captain Cook landed in 1770.



The ships disembarked in Port Jackson, which will become later the Sydney Harbour.



Morgan moves then to the Norfolk Island in the South Pacific.



Since I’ve been to Australia quite recently, I wanted to learn a little more about the colonization of this relative young country.

This book was supposed to be the first one of a trilogy but as far as I know, the author never finished it.


4* Tim
4* An Indecent Obsession
4* Thorn Birds
3* A Creed for the Third Millennium
3* The ladies of Missalonghi
3* Morgan’s Run
TBR The First Man in Rome
TBR The Song of Troy
TBR Bittersweeet
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
meadowsace
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
The problem with this book is that the details overwhelm the story-telling. McCullough is so invested in painting the world exactly as it was that the pace of the story suffers greatly. Morgan's Run would have made for a more enjoyable reading experience at 600 pages than it does at its monster 830 pages.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Rasmusweet
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
One's reading life is too abbreviated to waste on books that are long on page length and short on information. As evidenced by her otherwise excellent Masters of Rome series and this bit of over-researched fluff, McCullough desperately needs an editor. Morgan's Run (aka "life," as in, "I had a good run" as well as the name of a government-sanction rum distillery on Norfolk Island) is a biography of Richard Morgan, freeman of Bristol transported by a typical late 18th century British miscarriage of justice to Norfolk Island (a First Fleet colony of convict-settled Australia). The book begins with the announcement of the War of Independence in 1776 (albeit from a typical Bristol tavern point-of-view) though Richard's transporting aboard the Alexander doesn't take place until 1788. This represents 236 mind-numbing pages into the book with arrival in Botany Bay awaiting the turn of yet another 100 pages, meaning that more than half of the book's 600 pages are dull and irrelevant prologue in which Richard Morgan is more acted upon than actor.

Things pick up a bit as Morgan is taken from Plymouth for a year's sail to arrive in Botany Bay. Through revealed competence and an apparent encyclopedic memory, Morgan becomes head man among his small set of convicts. Unfortunately, most of the conflict is fleeting and quickly resolved (or abandoned), and the laconic Morgan makes for such poor company that even McCullough appears glad for opportunities to abandon him as the focus of her narrative (chiefly toward the end when she introduces a new character from off the Lady Juliana of the Second Fleet). As always, McCullough captures the tenor of the times and dialogue well, but she appears overwhelmed by ephemera: descriptions of daily weather, Morgan's random accounting of the Norfolk Island sawpit intake for a given week, what Morgan plans to have for dinner of an evening based on current garden inventory, the sequential moves in a game of chess, the distribution list of the latest litter of terrier puppies, and so forth. (And her afterword suggests she hoped to write a follow-up?!) The book was as substantial as styrofoam, cumbersome, bulky, and in need of compression. More worth a skim than a full read.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Kamilium
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
Un livre que j'ai lu adolescente, après mon père, après ma mère.
J'ai adoré ce roman, des années après j'en garde un excellent souvenir. C'est très bien écrit, ça se lit tout seul, vraiment vraiment très chouette !!!
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
toduwuroki
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
Dit is het verhaal van Richard Morgan, een man uit Bristol. Hij is getrouwd en heeft twee kinderen. Helaas sterft zijn dochtertje Mary aan de pokken als ze drie jaar is, en een paar jaar later krijgt zijn vrouw een beroerte en overlijdt onmiddellijk. Nog een tijd later verdwijnt zijn tienjarig zoontje William Henry, waarschijnlijk verdronken, maar zijn lichaam wordt nooit teruggevonden.
Vooral deze laatste wond heelt niet bij Richard. Hij begint steeds meer te drinken, en dan ontmoet hij een vrouw waarop hij verliefd wordt. Maar deze zit in een complot om Richard aan de grond te brengen. Richard wordt gearresteerd en na een jarenlange gevangenisstraf, naar Botany Bay gestuurd. De reis is vol verschrikkingen en duurt erg lang. Ook de eerste tijd op Botany Bay en later Norfolk Island is er een vol ontberingen en harde arbeid. Maar Richard geeft niet op, en uiteindelijk slaagt hij erin om op Norfolk Island een nieuw leven op te bouwen met een vrouw waar hij van houdt en waarmee hij een gezinnetje sticht.

Prachtig boek, met heel levendige beschrijvingen van de omstandigheden in de gevangenis, op het schip en op het eiland. Dikwijls zijn de wreedheden, zowel opgelegd door de oversten, als door de natuur, erg hard om te lezen, maar ze komen waarheidsgetrouw over.
De volharding van Richard is zonder meer prijzenswaardig, weinigen deden het hem na.

Ik had het boek al enkele jaren, maar eens ik er in begon te lezen, kon ik niet meer stoppen!
Een dikke pluim!
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
10hr10mn
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
... Show More
Gripping history of the birth of a nation and it's people. Even though it is super long, this one is worth investing the time to read.
0 0 Reply
Leave a Review
You must be logged in to rate and post a review. Register an account to get started.