Congratulations to Mark Dunn for the publication of The Convict Valley (Allen & Unwin, 2020). The book examines the impact of the British invasion and use of the valley as a penal station between 1804 and 1821, the environmental impact of the convict coal mines and timber getting and then the opening of the valley to emigrant farmers in the wake of J.T. Bigge’s report on the state of the colony. It considers the forgotten frontier of the Hunter Valley, the resistance of Aboriginal people and the emergence of a convict, working class community in the towns that developed.