Want More After the Dark Side Tour? Books and Podcasts to Keep the Stories Going
If you’ve just finished The Dark Side Tour, chances are your head is buzzing with names, places and events you’d never heard before. That’s our guide’s favourite part of guiding, seeing people realise just how much history is hiding in the streets they’ve been walking every day.
And if you’ve taken a tour with us, especially Roz, and mentioned you love reading or shown intense interest in the details of the stories, you’ve probably seen our eyes light up with the chance to share our sources, as they are the stories that connect us even more deeply to the places we walk through on tour.
Our recommendations are not glossy tourist books you find in the airport gift shop. They’re proper deep‑dives into Tasmania’s past, written by passionate historians and local researchers. Some are tricky to track down but you’ll usually find some of them at Petrarch’s Bookshop on Brisbane Street, sometimes at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, or you will have to reach out to the author direct. For our locals, many of these are available to borrow from the local Library.
Books & Podcast
Solomon’s Noose: The True Story of Her Majesty’s Hangman of Hobart Town – Steve Harris Exactly what it says on the cover, this book is a gripping look at Tasmania’s most infamous hangman. If you loved the gallows stories on tour, this one’s for you. This book gives a rawness into the life of male prisoners and the political impact of the Anti-Transportation Movement.
On the Town – Dianne J.E Cassidy A brilliant look at Launceston’s social history of brothels of the 1800s. The people, their daily lives and the way this city grew from a convict outpost into a community, around them and due to them.
Black War: Fear, Sex and Resistance in Tasmania – Nicholas Clements This one isn’t light reading, but it’s essential. It dives into the frontier conflict between palawa people and European settlers and gives so much context to Tasmania’s history. This book started Roz’s journey into understanding the deprivations against all First Nations people and ultimately changed her values and view on the world. Always Was, Always Will Be.
Truganini – Cassandra Pybus A deeply moving biography of Truganini, often described as the last full‑blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal woman (as you discovered on tour this is not true). This book challenges that label and explores her extraordinary life through the upheaval and trauma of the colonial era.
Van Diemen’s Women – Joan Kavanagh Explores the lives of women transported to Van Diemen’s Land and the hardships, resilience and personal stories that shaped early colonial Tasmania.
Launceston Female Factory: Convict Lives - Lucy Frost and Alice Meredith Hodgson This book dives into the experiences of women and children at the Launceston Female Factory. It explores their daily routines, punishments, resilience and how their lives shaped early Launceston. Essential if you want to understand the darker side of women’s convict history in the north of the island.
Tasmania’s Convicts: How Felons Built a Free Society – Alison Alexander A detailed look at the convict system and how those labelled felons eventually helped create the foundations of the community we know today.
Tasmanian Rogues & Absconders 1803 – 1875, Volume I: New Frontiers 1803 – 1821 For those who love the wildest stories, this book digs into the lives of convicts who escaped, rebelled or carved out daring paths through the frontier years of Tasmania’s settlement.
Launceston Revealed – Andrew Lee Parsons A local favourite full of little-known stories about the buildings and places you looked up at during the walk. Perfect for anyone who finished the tour still craning their neck.
Podcast: Treadmills Were Made for Torture – ABC’s No One Saw It Coming This podcast dives into Tasmania’s brutal convict punishments, including the notorious treadmill. It’s atmospheric and gripping — perfect listening for your flight home or the drive down the Midland Highway.
The Dark Side Tour is just the beginning, these reads and listens let you keep exploring long after the tour ends.
And if you do track any of them down, tell me next time you’re in town (or tag us on socials). I’m always looking for new recommendations too, especially if they’re local history books I haven’t discovered yet.
With love to Launceston,
Roz
