xxxiii 326 pages,including index and bibliography. The head's outer edge is very lightly chipped and there is light smudging on the front end paper where a pricehas been rubbed out, else pristine and obviously unread. ""A career in the Victorian penal system might not seem to be a source of excitement or even great interest, but for John Buckley Castieau it was the trigger for nearly three decades of diaries that reveal not only what went on behind prison walls but also much about the colony's early history. J.B. Castieau was the governor of both Beechworth and Melbourne gaols as well as, somewhat disastrously, the Inspector-General of Penal Establisments. Well-educated, fond of the theatre, frequently in debt, impulsively generous, self-doubting and of unsteady habits' in his cups, he knew many of the prominent characters of 'Marvellous Melbourne' " (Back cover)