Perhaps Australia"s most significant and most famous 19th-century colonial novel, For the Term of His Natural Life is a narrative of great suffering-of whips, chains, and man"s inhumanity. There is no attempt to soften the truth of the degradation and cruelty in convict Australia. Yet the novel is peopled with vivid characters-Rufus Dawes, condemned to transportation for a crime he did not commit, is one of the most unforgettable characters in Australian literature.