Robert Hughes's 1987 history of the Australian convict system is the single best account of how 162,000 men, women, and children were transported to Australia from Britain and Ireland between 1788 and 1868 — and what was done to them when they arrived. Hughes (a Sydney-born art critic and brilliant prose stylist) spends substantial chapters on Van Diemen's Land, the Macquarie Harbour penal station, Port Arthur, and the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart.
The book is long, fierce, occasionally one-sided, and difficult to put down. It is the indispensable companion to any visit to Tasmania's convict sites — read at least the Van Diemen's Land chapters before you arrive.