"SARA DANE"--on page and screen, an unforgettable heroine from author Catherine Gaskin--Set in the colorful days of the late Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth Centuries, story unfolds the history of New South Wales

Sara Dane  by  Catherine Gaskin

Here is an unforgettable woman. A woman as strong and as beautiful as the raw new country she helps to carve from the wilderness. A woman of fierce pride, yet gently devoted to her children, and possessed with an undying vision about the future of her land, Sara Dane epitomizes the heart of her untamed country - Australia.

Set in the colorful days of the late Eighteenth and the early Nineteenth Centuries, Sara Dane unfolds the history of New South Wales, from its beginnings as a penal colony to the day when it could lift its head in contentment and peace.

From the day in 1792 when young Sara, savagely sentenced in England to transportation on a trumped-up charge, came ashore at Botany Bay, until the day she returns triumphantly wealthy and prominent to her native London, her story rings with the fire of a great passion.

Sara's story is also the story of the men who loved her - Richard Barwell, her childhood love who possessiveness followed her thousands of miles; Andrew Maclay, whose strength and cunning combined with hers to produce an empire; Jeremy Hogan, the Irish rebel, whose presence meant security as Sara faced the crises of convinct outbreaks, giant floods, and armed rebellion with resolution. And then there was Louis de Bourget, the mysterious French emigre' whose love for her beauty and order brought a peace to Sara's life she had thought impossible.

But throughout her life, Sara held to her own personality tenaciously. All of Sydney knew her as a shrewd business-woman, magnificent, unconventional - but above all, a woman.

Sara Dane

DVDClassic Australian Stories

From the producers of "Breaker Morant" and "Storm Boy" comes this lavish Australian mini series. Based on the best-selling novel by Catherine Gaskin SARA DANE tells the epic story of a poor impish convict girl determined to escape a life of depravation and join the ranks of the colonial gentry. From the hold of a prison ship bound for Sydney Sara | played by newcomer Juliet Jordan | is released to become a maid whereupon she sets out to rise up out of her harsh convict roots. Stripped of her rags the now luminous Sara Dane is coveted by the ship's officer Andrew Macleay | Harold Hopkins | , who she marries to the chagrin of the colony's social circles. But they underrate Sara's fiercely independent spirit and driving ambition. Macleay's success allows him to buy acceptance for Sara - but when tragedy strikes, she must fight a courageous battle for her freedom and status. Screening to a huge television audience in 1982, SARA DANE set a standard for Australian drama, and continues to this day to be hailed as a television masterpiece.


Catherine Gaskin (2 April 1929 – 6 September 2009) historical fiction and romantic suspense.

She was born in Dundalk Bay, Louth, Ireland in 1929. When she was only three months old, her parents moved to Australia, settling in Coogee, a suburb of Sydney, where she grew up. Her first novel This Other Eden, was written when she was 15 and published two years later. After her second novel, With Every Year, was published, she moved to London. Three best-sellers followed: Dust in Sunlight (1950), All Else is Folly (1951), and Daughter of the House (1952). She completed her best known work, Sara Dane, on her 25th birthday in 1954, and it was published in 1955. It sold more than 2 million copies, was translated into a number of other languages, and was made into a television series in Australia in 1982. Other novels included A Falcon for the Queen (1972) and The Summer of the Spanish Woman (1977).

Catherine Gaskin moved to Manhattan for ten years, after marrying an American. She then moved to the Virgin Islands, then in 1967 to Ireland, where she became an Irish citizen. She also lived on the Isle of Man. Her last novel was The Charmed Circle (1988). She then returned to Sydney, where she died in September 2009, aged 80, of ovarian cancer.