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Summary: Fascinating Story
Review: Although the text is not as "steamy" as the title implies, I enjoyed this fascinating portrayal of the displacement of British women who were sentenced to "life across the seas" for committing petty crimes. These marriagable women were transported on the "Lady Julian" and destined to colonize Australia...many would become founding mothers of this new territory. The book begins with accounts of the crimes and trials of the women. The story becomes more absorbing when the "Lady Julian" sets sail. The book reveals the cunning and determination of these women not only survive, but to set up a profitable trade at many ports along the way. A definite read for those interested in historical depictions of resourceful women in the 18th century.
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Summary: Deserves a Pulitizer
Review: An exquisitely penned and thoughtfully researched account of life in post-Revolutionary War England. The horrific means of coping with an over-populated society included shipping women convicts to the Austrailian colonies for "crimes" ranging from hankerchief theft to manslaughter. Disregard the title's implications. This book is a gripping account of how more than 200 women and children survived a ghastly voyage and how many emerged as heroines. It's one of those books you don't want to end and will contemplate long after the last page is read.
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Summary: The true story of a female convicts ship bound for Australia
Review: In 1787,1000 people, including a large number of male convicts, were sent from England to colonize the bay of Sydney Cove. Within a year the poorly prepared colony was failing, struggling to survive in the new world--the city-bred petty criminals were no match for the harsh elements of the Australian coast. England's leaders knew that for the colony to succeed, drastic measures would have to be taken. England had another problem it needed to solve. England's problem was about to become the colony's solution. By 1788, post-war England was teeming with overpopulation. Those who couldn't find reputable work quickly found other ways, outside of the law, to survive. Criminals, both petty and hardened convicts, overflowed the "gaols," creating horrific living conditions for the prisoners. Overcrowding, disease, malnutrition-- This may sound like a 21st century newscast, but in reality it was the story "ripped from the 18th century headlines" of the "gaols" of England's major cities. Sian Rees' fast-moving book _The Floating Brothel_ reads more like a work of historical adventure fiction rather than a dry documentary based on real events. Taken largely from period documents, including letters, court papers, and the first-person memoirs of Lady Julian's ship steward John Nicol, _The Floating Brothel_ is a story of struggle, of despair, of politics and societal problems, but most of all a story of humanity. Some of the estimated 237 women convicts who arrived in New South Wales in 1790, after an eleven-month voyage at sea, became pioneers of the young community, the first true female entrepeneurs of their time, finding stability and prosperity in their strange new surroundings. A dozen or so of the women became pregnant by members of the ship's crew and bore their children at sea. John Nicols, upon whose memoirs much of the story of the Floating Brothel is based, dictates a heartfelt account of falling in love with teenage convict Sarah Whitelam, who gave birth to a son by Nicols several months into the voyage. Some of the new mothers, and many of the other women, found husbands among the colony's reformed convicts, had children, settled in the colony for life. Some of the women reverted to their old ways--stealing, cheating, prostituting themselves for a few small coins. Dozens of these extraordinary individual stories are told in _The Floating Brothel_, from Rees' highly detailed accounts of the women's alleged criminal acts and arrests, to the characterization of individual members of the ship's crew. We can almost see the punishment of the "Transportation to Parts Beyond the Seas" through the eyes of those who lived through the experience, so raw and real is Rees' narrative. There are no true "happy endings" in Rees' book; rather, she explores the spectrum of human nature through the experiences of these female convicts.
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Summary: A Nautical History Like No Other
Review: In July 1789, the _Lady Julian_, crammed with about 240 female prisoners, recently sprung from jail so that they could be transported to a penal colony in New South Wales, set sail from Portsmouth for the 13,000 mile journey. The purpose was, to be sure, to rid the country of these prostitutes, pickpockets, and shoplifters, and to ease the crowding of the 'gaols,' but there was another reason. The penal colony at Botany Bay was overwhelmingly male, and the overseers were worried about the 'irregular' means of sexual satisfaction in which the convicts were indulging. It could be that the cargo of the _Lady Julian_ would provide wives and families and stability to the penal colony, and at least the women could provide a more natural outlet for the men's urges. The story of the cargo of the _Lady Julian_ is told authoritatively for the first time in _The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and Its Cargo of Female Convicts_ (Theia / Hyperion) by Siân Rees. On board ship, and within the colonies, informal pairings were made to 'wives,' and in fact it was this sort of wife that the women were expected to become in the colony, although real marriage was of course encouraged. The women were probably trying to make the best of a bad situation, getting better berthing and protection if they shared the bunk of a sailor. The women were treated humanely by this particular crew, which did not skimp on their rations to improve profits, and allowed the women to make some money in prostitution when they went ashore at supply ports. But Rees dwells at length on the environment the ship presented. Beneath the stinking living quarters were the bilges, where slopped 'dead rats, dead cats, compost of mounds of vegetable peelings, feces, urine, rotting fabric, and decomposing sick.' When the ship was in port, or adrift in the Doldrums, it floated in a miasma of excrement of its own making. Sexual diseases were spread freely on board. There was no soap for washing, and only salt water could be used to dissolve whatever it might of accumulated dirt. The salt-encrusted clothes caused rashes and infections. The women of the _Lady Julian_, for all the hardships and deprivations recounted in this rousing tale of an eleven-month voyage, found friends and contacts from the old country, made assignations, and took care of themselves. Many found it was far easier to become, say, respectable shopkeepers, in the colony than it would have ever been in London. Rees has counted on a faulty narrative by the cooper on board, as well as an enormous amount of contemporary records. There is no way to be sure of many of the details she has given, as the documentation of the voyage is incomplete, but she has supplemented her description with contemporary reports from other, similar vessels. She has produced an earthy and entertaining popular history of a unique high-seas adventure.
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Summary: Impressive research and fascinating story
Review: In the foreward to this engaging narrative, Ms. Rees informs us that "when the American colonies defeated British soldiers and tax collectors, they also stopped accepting British criminals. By 1783, therefore, Britain had to find somewhere else in the world to transport its criminals." Australia was the place. Just as Jamestown, the early colony in Virginia, needed an infusion of marriageable women to allow it to grow (one of the three events of the red-letter year, 1619, was the arrival of a shipload of unmarried women), so would the penal colony in Sydney Cove. Beginning with a description of the "crimes" for which women were sentenced to capital punishment and proceeding through the trials, prison conditions, and alternate punishment of banishment, Ms. Rees traces the voyage of the first group of women convicts to Australia. From the onset, she admits that her primary sources are limited and one, the diary of one of the crew of the Lady Julian, is somewhat doubtful because it was written so long after the fact. Even so, she has pulled together court records, contemporary British accounts of prison conditions, accounts of later voyages and other sources into a very impressive piece of research, and a very readable story. In particular, her accounts of ship-board births, the pecking order among the female prisoners, the rights the crew assumed (both for sexual favors and for selling them in the ports of call) are fascinating reading.
Rating:
Summary: Impressive research and fascinating story
Review: In the foreward to this engaging narrative, Ms. Rees informs us that "when the American colonies defeated British soldiers and tax collectors, they also stopped accepting British criminals. By 1783, therefore, Britain had to find somewhere else in the world to transport its criminals." Australia was the place. Just as Jamestown, the early colony in Virginia, needed an infusion of marriageable women to allow it to grow (one of the three events of the red-letter year, 1619, was the arrival of a shipload of unmarried women), so would the penal colony in Sydney Cove. Beginning with a description of the "crimes" for which women were sentenced to capital punishment and proceeding through the trials, prison conditions, and alternate punishment of banishment, Ms. Rees traces the voyage of the first group of women convicts to Australia. From the onset, she admits that her primary sources are limited and one, the diary of one of the crew of the Lady Julian, is somewhat doubtful because it was written so long after the fact. Even so, she has pulled together court records, contemporary British accounts of prison conditions, accounts of later voyages and other sources into a very impressive piece of research, and a very readable story. In particular, her accounts of ship-board births, the pecking order among the female prisoners, the rights the crew assumed (both for sexual favors and for selling them in the ports of call) are fascinating reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Floating Brothel
Review: Rees does a good job on presenting a morally ambiguous topic clearly and sympathetically. The Lady Julian transported over 200 female convicts from England to New South Wales, and many a researcher would have opted for finding fault with someone along the way. Rees, on the other hand, appears to have opted for assuming the best of everyone involved.
Rees does a good job of keeping the reader involved in the story and of keeping the story moving in a fashion that a reader can follow. Dates are used liberally, and correlated frequently with other dates, such that one can keep track of where and when things take place without taking notes.
However, Rees also makes heavy use of conjecture and relies heavily on one source, the memoir of the Lady Julian's cooper, which may not be the most accurate account the world has ever known. The fact that one must rely on conjecture and a possibly unreliable narrator isn't particularly bothersome, except that it raises the question of whether Rees is pushing a conclusion.
Overall, I'd say it's an interesting book and worth the read if you're interested in the subject matter, but that perhaps its conclusions are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: Sian Rees has drummed up a very readable and very interesting account of the transport ship Lady Julian (strange name!) that set sail from England in 1789 to Sydney Cove, Australia.
The opening chapters are very dry and are clearly based on set of gaol lists etc. to try and get names onto the ship. Rees settles on the 'history' of nine or ten female convicts who cover as broad a spectrum as you can from the 'criminal' tier of Georgian society plus the usual faces - captain, purser, surgeon, cook.
In a strange way, once Lady Julian hits the open sea, Rees' narration changes, moves away from a slightly stilted historian to biographical free flowing ease. She even permits herself to 'set the scene' - that biographical method so frowned upon by strict historians.
This work succeeds all the more for it.
If you liked 'Further than Any Man' - the story of James Cook - you'll like this.
The journey down Africa, to Rio, through Cape Horn - all the while taking care to explain the current state of these 18th century places - is so readable, all the time giving updates on the desparate situation at Sydney Cove. In some respects Rees almost glamorizes the journey and is correct to point out that we cannot apply twenty-first century morality to an eighteenth century reality.
This is immensely readable, extremely interesting and provides a fascinating insight to a small snippet of history that almost defined an antipodean future. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: fascinating insight
Review: Sian Rees has written an extremely readable book, which is not in the least 'dry' or 'dusty' although it is history.
The Floating Brothel of the title is the ship 'The Lady Julian' used to transport 250 female prisoners to Australia in the late 18th century. It is quite horrifying to see how these some of these women could be sentenced to seven years 'in land beyond the seas' for what today would be classed as minor misdemeanours.
However, the women aboard the Lady Julian were more fortunate than many being aboard a ship with a decent, honest agent and captain to ensure their welfare was taken care of. Many of them became 'wives' to the crew for the duration of the voyage, which of course gave them certain advantages. Nonetheless this book still manages to convey the horror of this punishment and the harsh conditions of the day.
Sian Rees manages to inject a little humour at times (such as the antics of some of the women in Tenerife) which provides a welcome relief and stops the book becoming too grim. She also adds some nice touches of history by recounting snippets about Captain Cook and Lieutenant Bligh and the Bounty.
This is a good account of crime, punishment and survival in Georgian England and well worth a read.
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Summary: An interesting spin on the usual convicts tale
Review: Sian Rees set herself up for a difficult task but she succeeded in flying colours. It is notoriously hard to find any information about the people who were transported to Australia as convicts let alone details about female convicts. Thanks to a little known memoir of one of the ship's officers, John Nicol, Sian Rees has been able to put a small amount flesh onto the bones of the women who were among the very first convicts to be sent to Australia. We learn about the offences of some of the women, how they supported themselves as prostitutes at ports of call (or by sleeping with the ship's company) in order to survive and, in some cases, their extraordinary life stories (both failures and successes) once they arrived in Sydney Cove. I very much enjoyed this book - it was a fascinating insight into late 18th century morals and the creation of the colony in New South Wales.
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