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21st out of 239 books
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287 voters
The Potato Factory (The Potato Factory #1)
Ikey Solomon is very successful indeed, in the art of thieving. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from 19th century London to Van Diemens Land. In the backstreets and dives of Hobart Town, Mary learns the art of brewing and builds The Potato Factory, where...more
Mass Market Paperback, 739 pages
Published
April 11th 1996
by Random House UK Distribution
(first published 1995)
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review finally!.
Ikey Solomon and his partner in crime, Mary Abacus, make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth-century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land.
In the backstreets and dives of Hobart Town, Mary builds The Potato Factory - a brewery, where she plans a new future. But her ambitions are threatened by Ikey's wife, Hannah, her old enemy. As each woman sets out to destroy the other, the families are brought to the edge of disaster.
The characters Ikey, Mary and Hannah...more
Ikey Solomon and his partner in crime, Mary Abacus, make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth-century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land.
In the backstreets and dives of Hobart Town, Mary builds The Potato Factory - a brewery, where she plans a new future. But her ambitions are threatened by Ikey's wife, Hannah, her old enemy. As each woman sets out to destroy the other, the families are brought to the edge of disaster.
The characters Ikey, Mary and Hannah...more
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Holy hell! This is one damn good book. Bryce Courtenay still amazes me in his level of research comparable to only authors such as Diana Gabaldon and Jack Whyte. It deals with the populating of the British colonies in Australia, Tasmaina, and New Zealand. While the accuracy of detail is impeccable, his skill as a storyteller is what keeps me hooked on ordering his books from Australia. Good God, I hope this man lives forever and keeps writing! Thank goodness that it is one book in a series of 3....more
10 likes · like · see review
Memorable Quotes
"...my only desire is to teach the word o' man and leave the word o' Gawd to the pulpit men”...more
“The rapacious white tribe who were arriving in increasing numbers, not only as convicts but also as settlers, wanted to own everything they touched. They slashed and burned the wilderness so that they might graze their sheep and grow their corn. They erected fences around the land they now called their own and which henceforth they were prepared to defend with muskets and sometimes even
1 like · like · see review
What an altogether roller coaster journey about London during the early and mid 18 hundreds. I knew that 'life' during those times was rather terrible for the lower class of the population, but how vividly 'poverty' is described - in a Charles Dickens style - leave little to the imagination of the reader. The Potato Factory was a very good read and again my admiration for Bryce's detail in describing human misery to its fullest. I never knew that Tasmania was a destination for convicts, I knew a...more
1 like · like · see review
when I first started listening to this book, I didn't like it, but I kept listening. Ikey Solomon actually existed and was the model of Charles Dickens' Fagin. Bryce Courtenay writes in the English of Charles Dickens, and the book was read by a person with a wonderful sense of dialect.
The book and characters grew on me, and at the end, I didn't want the book to end. It was a wonderful friend through much travel and gardening.
The descriptions of the Hobart Penal Colony, the treatment of blacks...more
The book and characters grew on me, and at the end, I didn't want the book to end. It was a wonderful friend through much travel and gardening.
The descriptions of the Hobart Penal Colony, the treatment of blacks...more
‘The Potato Factory’ by Bryce Courtnay.
This excellent novel sat on my bookshelf for some months before I finally got around to reading it. I am not sure why, perhaps it was the title that did not strike the right cords. I even picked it up a couple of times, but dismissed it. What an oversight that was.
'The Potato Factory' is a journey back in time to Dickensian London and all the filth and squalor that inspired Charles Dickens to pen his many novels, and in particular ‘Oliver Twist’.
Although wr...more
This excellent novel sat on my bookshelf for some months before I finally got around to reading it. I am not sure why, perhaps it was the title that did not strike the right cords. I even picked it up a couple of times, but dismissed it. What an oversight that was.
'The Potato Factory' is a journey back in time to Dickensian London and all the filth and squalor that inspired Charles Dickens to pen his many novels, and in particular ‘Oliver Twist’.
Although wr...more
My Christmas book is finally finished--all 666 pages of very small print. My 5 star books all hit my heart and emotions but this one earned 4 for many reasons. Taking place in early 1800's starting in England with a actual character from history, the author weaves a story involving people in the lower levels of humanity; Ikey Solomon (he was the real man), the fence, his street urchins, the whore houses--the scenes that had I lived then I hopefully would not have known. Ikey schemes got him ship...more
I read this book way back in 1997, when I was living in Perth, Western Australia. I never forgot it. My original copy is very likely in my former boyfriend's attic in Wembley :) For years I could not find it, then out of the blue, last week, I found it on Amazon, as long as I bought it for my Kindle. I am re-reading it. Now, it probably isn't really a five-star book, but, I have such a history with this story, and the fact that it stayed with me very strongly for nearly 20 years, I must recommen...more
The Potato Factory, by Bryce Courtenay, Narrated by Humphrey Bower, Produced by Bolinda Publishing, downloaded from audible.com.
This book is the first in a series of three. Bryce Courtenay, in an introduction which he read personally in the audio version, states that it is his tribute to Australia, a country which has given him much. (He was born in South Africa.)
This book is about Ikey Solomon, apparently a real person. He was raised in the poorest streets of London, became a thief, and traine...more
This book is the first in a series of three. Bryce Courtenay, in an introduction which he read personally in the audio version, states that it is his tribute to Australia, a country which has given him much. (He was born in South Africa.)
This book is about Ikey Solomon, apparently a real person. He was raised in the poorest streets of London, became a thief, and traine...more
This is the first in the Australian trilogy:
1.The Potato Factory
2.Tommo & Hawk
3.Solomon's Song
I was hooked after the first chapter!
Bryce Courtenay is noted for his ability to weave dramatic, graphic, human stories with historic fact. He did not disappoint with this book. I could not put it down. We meet Ikey, Hannah and Mary in 1820's England.. "dark times, bleak times, hard times". They survive in the under belly of English society. Their lives and their stories are woven together..Deemed c...more
1.The Potato Factory
2.Tommo & Hawk
3.Solomon's Song
I was hooked after the first chapter!
Bryce Courtenay is noted for his ability to weave dramatic, graphic, human stories with historic fact. He did not disappoint with this book. I could not put it down. We meet Ikey, Hannah and Mary in 1820's England.. "dark times, bleak times, hard times". They survive in the under belly of English society. Their lives and their stories are woven together..Deemed c...more
Many years ago I read "The Power of One" - Bryce Courtenay's book on South Africa......I never did read the sequal for some reason and I don't think I realized how many historical fiction books he had written. This summer I picked up Power of One again, and just so, so enjoyed it again. Courtenay's style of writing is gentle, informative, involving.....The people seem to be real people, with real histories and they tell the stories of the countries. Went on to read "Tandia", the second book in t...more
Narrated by Humphrey Bower
23 hrs and 27 mins
Publisher's Summary
Always leave a little salt on the bread...
Ikey Solomon's favorite saying is also his way of doing business, and in the business of thieving he's very successful indeed. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land.
In the backstreets and dives...more
23 hrs and 27 mins
Publisher's Summary
Always leave a little salt on the bread...
Ikey Solomon's favorite saying is also his way of doing business, and in the business of thieving he's very successful indeed. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land.
In the backstreets and dives...more
I was initially a little intimidated by the size...and the start was a slight bit slow. But I so enjoyed this historical novel. It is a well-researched novel about the growth of the colonies of England, Australia and New Zealand in the early 1800's and is told in a Dickensian manner. The central character in this story is Ikey Solomon whom most readers will recognize as ‘Fagan’ from ‘Oliver Twist.’ There are many other Dickens' parallel characters. Once in a while I would get caught up by the la...more
First - I loved this book. After starting it on vacation (it was the only book at the rental home on the beach where we were) I had to find the others in this series.
The storyline was so fascinating to me as a look into the lives of the poor and downtrodden - prisoners sent from Britain to Australia. Because of the people involved the language is very course and I wouldn't recommend it to people who are offended by such. I don't believe it is filthy for the sake of filth, but if this were a mov...more
The storyline was so fascinating to me as a look into the lives of the poor and downtrodden - prisoners sent from Britain to Australia. Because of the people involved the language is very course and I wouldn't recommend it to people who are offended by such. I don't believe it is filthy for the sake of filth, but if this were a mov...more
Of course it was the mention of Dicken's "Fagan" that hooked me into reading this monster. I went back and forth in my opinion while reading it - feeling more than a little weary of the whole underworld aspect(there is only so much pick-pocketing, fencing, bawdy-house, filthy rathole-type content I can take before I start feeling jaded). However! The characters really held me, and I stayed with them, hoping they would somehow (however unlikely) get to a better place. Ikey and Mary are both vivid...more
Jan 10, 2010
Teresa
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fans of Bryce Courtenay, Australian history
I'm a bit undecided with The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtenay.
Yes, there's no doubt that Bryce Courtenay is a great writer. He has the ability to make you believe that you are experiencing the same things with the characters whether its in the streets of 19th century London or the colonial outpost that was Van Damien Island and even projecting sympathy towards the lowest scums of English society. Also, the way he sets up the background of the story is nothing short of perfect, you know each de...more
Yes, there's no doubt that Bryce Courtenay is a great writer. He has the ability to make you believe that you are experiencing the same things with the characters whether its in the streets of 19th century London or the colonial outpost that was Van Damien Island and even projecting sympathy towards the lowest scums of English society. Also, the way he sets up the background of the story is nothing short of perfect, you know each de...more
This book has the quality of a folk legend re-imagined. The characters loom larger than life and protagonists endure years of the worst kinds of suffering before triumphing over their oppressors. The first half of this novel, set in nineteenth century London, is slowly-paced, but packed with eccentric, Dickensian characters, complete with dialect. The very eventful second half takes place mostly in Australia during its penal colony days, as the feud that boils for over 700 pages comes to a head....more
This book was a nice surprise. It popped up as a personal suggestion based on my past purchases from a bookseller website. The author wrote this historical novel almost 20 years ago as part one of a trilogy, and covered a time and place I had not previously come across, I.e. the settlement of the Australian continent. The story begins in Dickens-era London, and then moves to the island today known as Tasmania, after the main characters get “transported” to the British penal colony following cour...more
It took me a few months to get through this audiobook and every now and again I had to stop listening because it was just too much: the violence, the poverty, the lack of compassion. Yet I would always pick it up again, keen to find out what happens next, because throughout the story there is a glimmer of hope in its characters' grit, their will to survive and find peace, however short lived. Bryce Courtenay is an impressive storyteller who is sometimes ruthless to his readers while describing t...more
Audiobook. The Aussie narrator, Humphrey Bower, is fantastic.
Courtenay was excellent at creating a vivid scene and drawing a memorable character, though said character may not be memorable for enjoyable reasons.
Courtenay also seems to have a fascination with outrageously fat women. They're all over his books. Kindhearted, jolly, fat and a little sad and usually doomed.
Audiobook sex scenes are always awkward, but this one had an 'oral bribery' scene that was over the top ridiculous. Humphrey Bo...more
Courtenay was excellent at creating a vivid scene and drawing a memorable character, though said character may not be memorable for enjoyable reasons.
Courtenay also seems to have a fascination with outrageously fat women. They're all over his books. Kindhearted, jolly, fat and a little sad and usually doomed.
Audiobook sex scenes are always awkward, but this one had an 'oral bribery' scene that was over the top ridiculous. Humphrey Bo...more
I loved this because of the stories. It is not a plot-driven book. Read it for the enjoyment of the times, but know that those times we're not politically or humanly correct and there are prejudices and slurs expressed by several characters. The only one that seems to be updated is about our main character, Mary Abacus, who encounters gender prejudice but overcomes it.
I listened to this on Audible and enjoyed the voice of Humphrey Bower. Great talent and variety! My only negative is the way it...more
A rip-roarin' tale. The book follows Ikey Solomon, his genuinely evil wife, Hannah, and also Ikey's sometime-business-partner and sometime-lover(maybe) Mary Abacus, from Dickensian London, ultimately to Tasmania, in Australia. They are all individually "transported" there under Britian's criminal punishment policy, which generated much of the early (non-native) population of Australia. (Solomon, incidentally, was apparently a real-life figure, who formed the basis of Fagin in Dickens' book, Oliv...more
I did not stop to review this novel: The Potato Factory, by Bryce Courtenay because it is part of the Australian Trilogy and I could not wait to read more of the story of its characters. It satisfies on many levels, giving me an history based experience of the London Eastside, England's justice system, and what happened to criminals who were transported to Tasmania, to name a few. It is a view of class in British society from the lowest level, the sharp perceptions of two survivors, Ikey Solomon...more
I started listening to this audiobook and got about 2 hours into the 23 hours of narration before I decided it wasn't a book I wanted to continue. One reviewer commented that is just so much bawdy house, poverty and degradation one can read before becoming jaded. I did not feel jaded, but I quickly got weary of the types of characters and events that were presented in the early part of the book. I decided there were too many more books with less depressing and disgusting situations that I'd rath...more
This was a beautifully written book about early 1800's back alley London people who had really tough lives but somehow survive the absolute worse human cruelty imaginable. Parts of this book were shocking and horrifying but I just couldn't stop reading about these lives lived like ongoing train wrecks. I liked the character named Mary Abacus the most as she had amazing personal strength, power, and the ability to not only survive against all odds but to actually carve out a rewarding life in Aus...more
I got this book to see just what this author was about. I an one quarter Australian, and studied in Australia but the potato factory helped me to understand just how the convict culture worked back when the country was being formed. My relatives came after convicts stopped coming but they are part of who I am too.
The character of Ikie Solonon was really irritating at times, really evil at others, and downright amazing at others. I loved all of the developments Courtenay put into the story, espe...more
The character of Ikie Solonon was really irritating at times, really evil at others, and downright amazing at others. I loved all of the developments Courtenay put into the story, espe...more
This is the 4th Courtenay book I've read. He is such a gifted storey teller.
This is a big and long book, as is his style in writing. It takes place in 19th Century England and follows the life of Ikey Solomon, a notorious and sleazy criminal who gets caught and is sent on a harsh and gruelling journey to a penal colony in Australia. His mistress and partner in crime, Mary Abacus is also serving time on this colony. I just cringed at the descriptive scenes of punishment, near starvation and filth...more
This is a big and long book, as is his style in writing. It takes place in 19th Century England and follows the life of Ikey Solomon, a notorious and sleazy criminal who gets caught and is sent on a harsh and gruelling journey to a penal colony in Australia. His mistress and partner in crime, Mary Abacus is also serving time on this colony. I just cringed at the descriptive scenes of punishment, near starvation and filth...more
I really did enjoy this book for the most part. During some of it I felt like it did drag on a little but I guess all that detail added to the realness of the story and the building of the characters.
I could not believe how much character development there was in this book. It virtually ran over a period of almost 20 years and it was kind of exciting to see where the main characters ended up after all that time. You almost felt like you were part of the lives of Ikey and Mary by the end after e...more
I could not believe how much character development there was in this book. It virtually ran over a period of almost 20 years and it was kind of exciting to see where the main characters ended up after all that time. You almost felt like you were part of the lives of Ikey and Mary by the end after e...more
Bryce Courtenay plagiarised two pages from the book Notorious Strumpets and Dangerous Girls: Convict Women in Van Diemen's Land, 1803-1829, written by a family friend. The textbook is rather large, nearly two thousand pages (I did not read all of it), and details the lives and histories of the female convicts of Tasmania.
Notorious Strumpets was not a popular book and was in fact incredibly niche, which is why Courtenay got away with it for so long. I noticed it myself when I was forced to read T...more
Notorious Strumpets was not a popular book and was in fact incredibly niche, which is why Courtenay got away with it for so long. I noticed it myself when I was forced to read T...more
This book was given to me by the lady in the next apartment to ours whilst we were holidaying on Crete. We'd struck up a 'Lovely weather again/how's your day been?' relationship whilst sitting on our ground floor balconies reading.
"You won't be able to put it down," she told me.
She was right.
The book is based on Ikey Solomon, the so-called "Prince of Fences" and the basis of the Fagin character in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. It is the first in a three-part series, followed by Tommo &...more
"You won't be able to put it down," she told me.
She was right.
The book is based on Ikey Solomon, the so-called "Prince of Fences" and the basis of the Fagin character in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. It is the first in a three-part series, followed by Tommo &...more
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I was born illegitimately in 1933 in South Africa and spent my early childhood years in a small town deep in the heart of the Lebombo mountains.
It was a somewhat isolated community and I grew up among farm folk and the African people. At the age of five I was sent to a boarding school which might be better described as a combination orphanage and reform school, where I learned to box - though less...more
More about Bryce Courtenay...
It was a somewhat isolated community and I grew up among farm folk and the African people. At the age of five I was sent to a boarding school which might be better described as a combination orphanage and reform school, where I learned to box - though less...more
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“my only desire is to teach the word o' man and leave the word o' Gawd to the pulpit men”
—
2 people liked it
“The rapacious white tribe who were arriving in increasing numbers, not only as convicts but also as settlers, wanted to own everything they touched. They slashed and burned the wilderness so that they might graze their sheep and grow their corn. They erected fences around the land they now called their own and which henceforth they were prepared to defend with muskets and sometimes even their lives. They built church steeples and prison walls and homes of granite hewn from the virgin rock and timber cut from the umbrageous mountain forests. They possessed everything upon the island, the wild beasts that grazed upon its surface, the birds that flew over it, the fish that swam in its rushing river torrents and the barking seals resting in the quiet bays and secluded inlets. Everything they thought worthwhile was attached to the notion of ownership.”
—
2 people liked it
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