'A book shouting with life...a novel that would be intriguing just for its ambition, but is deeply impressive in the fine grain of its achievement. Every page fizzes with linguistic invention, and the interleaving of high comedy with dramatic terror is expertly handled... English Passengers deserves to be welcomed into port with a riot of bunting and prizes.'
Guardian

'An engrossing, deftly constructed, serious but very readable book...a very impressive performance: angry and ironic by turns, and confident enough to let the story speak for itself.'
Sunday Telegraph

'Kneale covers a lot of ground, but the meticulously researched historical details and background are artfully deployed and always keep the novel afloat rather than threatening to sink it. What is really striking about the novel, however, is its structure and technique... A jolly good yarn, a careful and vivid historical re-enactment and, above all, a tour de force of technical control and stamina.'
Spectator

'[A] breathtakingly good novel...funny, savage, compassionate, a brilliant enactment of ideological clashes and the opportunism and sacrifice of the colonial adventure, this is a big, mind-expanding book in every respect.'
Daily Mail

'A dashing historical novel, grand in conception but carefully and steadily executed...one of the most impressive things about English Passengers is the extent to which it revives our interest in history and truth...The voices and information that crowd English Passengers have been marshalled to support a compelling adventure story with subversive undertones...expertly told.',
The Times

'One of the most enjoyable and interesting reads I have had in a long time...One of the most shameful events in the history of the British Empire...is fearlessly explored with clear-sighted intelligence and unflinching imagination...English Passengers is a fascinating story, richly told: a major work by a major talent.'
Independent

'An engrossing and enjoyable read, the sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain.'
Daily Telegraph

'Triumphant...Although it contains much that is harrowing, English Passengers is also often hilarious. Tart wit generates caustically funny scenes. Relishably ironic fates are dealt out to the book's more dislikeable characters...From Patrick White and Thomas Kenneally to David Malouf and Peter Carey, colonial Australia has been fortunate in the quality of its literary chroniclers...English Passengers takes Kneale into this distinguished company.'
Sunday Times

'Fantastic. One of the best books I've read since we started doing this programme. It's an absolute cracker. Run out everbody and get copies.' Susan Jeffries,
Saturday Review, BBC Radio 4

The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, July-August 1857

Three days into our journey Captain Kewley and his chief mate, Brew, suddenly strode into the cabin without so much as knocking at the door. Hardly had I begun to register my displeasure at this invasion of my privacy, when the captain began trying to persuade me that we should not, as planned, drop anchor at Jamaica.

'It's just that I remembered the chase you were in to get to Tasmania, you see, Vicar, while the fact is we never need to go there. We've got supplies enough to carry us to Africa nicely.'

While I regard myself as a man ever open to suggestions, I confess that this particular proposal held little appeal. In the first place I felt that an agreement, once entered upon, should be properly adhered to by both parties, if only as a matter of principle, and it had been amply clear that we were to stop at Kingston. There was, in truth, also another consideration. Ever since the Sincerity had reached open waters and so encountered the full notion of the seas, the pleasing prospect of our first landfall had been greatly - even ceaselessly - in my thoughts. The possibility of this now becoming even further removed, and of my remaining aboard ship continuously for two months or more, was therefore far from welcome.

'I believe we should keep to our original course,' I told the captain firmly.

'It's to your own advantage,' Kewley insisted.

Assistance came from an unexpected quarter. Potter's head loomed down from his bunk bed. 'But we must call in at Jamaica,' he declared simply. 'Besides, I cannot believe it would add so greatly to our journey, seeing as we have to go near.'

I must confess I had found the behaviour of the expedition surgeon far from helpful - a matter which I will recount more fully later - and yet his words at this moment were welcome enough. Kewley tried to threaten us with sea technicalities, but when I warned him that I might be forced to reconsider the charter fee which we had agreed, his face, which normally displayed a kind of beaming slyness, quite scowled. 'I'll see what I can do,' he promised sourly, and with this he and Brew marched away, grumbling to one another in that infuriating language of theirs.

I am never one, I must insist, to indulge in self-pity - I have, indeed, observed that this quality can be as much of the undoing of a man as drink, leading him into ever greater aimlessness and despond - and yet I confess the days after we departed from the river Blackwater had hardly been my happiest. The start of my difficulties was, I believe, the dinner we were served the evening we set sail, which was excessively fatty, while matters were not helped when, on retiring that night, I found the cabin became filled with a most noxious smell, much like a terrible gaseous pond, and which, I was later told, was caused by water in the bilges becoming disturbed by the movement of the ship. It was true that the Sincerity was rolling and pitching ever more wildly. Within the hour the wind seemed to be blowing little less than a full gale, and feeling suddenly unwell, I found myself journeying up to the deck, shivering stoically by the rail in my nightshirt and overcoat.

Sadly this proved only the first of many such visits. The weather seemed obstinately resolved to grow worse rather than better, and by morning waves were crashing against the bow so hard that the whole vessel reverberated with their force, and a man more lacking courage than myself might have feared that the ship would capsize altogether, or simply fragment into so many splinters. Rather to my surprise my two colleagues appeared unaffected by the fatty dinner, and would both greedily march off to the dining cabin on every occasion. Despite my discomfort I was most happy for them, naturally, though I did take exception to the way Dr Potter would insist on loudly describing the meals he had just consumed, even though it must have been evident that I was feeling still delicate.

Whitbread Book of the Year Award: Winner 2000