Captain Melville (book)

The Bulletin said "It really is time these bushranging histories were done soberly, reliably, in acceptable prose and with a convincing presentation of character. But in the meantime Captain Melville for its information about a little-known bushranger and the dark deeds of the convict-system, cannot fail to be interesting."^[3]

Walkabout said "in what purports to be a documentary treatment of the story, McCallum sometimes gets completely lost in the depths of Mr Clunes’s historical and opinionated padding. Indeed, his kinky personality becomes so blurred, at times, that, at one stage at least, he reappears almost as a misunderstood and mistreated victim of sadistic punishment."^[4]

The Bristol Post thought the book made Melville "a very human and not unsympathetic figure."^[5]