From the slums of Liverpool to the edges of the known world, one boy's hunger for freedom sparks a journey that will span continents… and generations. In the squalid docklands of 1830s Liverpool, fifteen-year-old Richard Belsar knows two things for sure: life is hard, and dreams are for other people. Born into a world of poverty, violence, and survival, Richard longs for more than lumping cargo and dodging gangs. He craves the open sea, the thrill of foreign lands, and a chance to build a life of his own making. What unfolds is an extraordinary story of a young man who crosses oceans and empires as a merchant sailor and ship's carpenter. From the wind-whipped decks of Atlantic traders to the palm-oil outposts of West Africa, from the convict ports of Van Diemen's Land to the goldfields of Victoria, Itinerant Soul follows the path of a working-class boy who dares to carve his mark into history. Blending fact and fiction, Itinerant Soul is a biographic imagination of a true story. Don Alcock pieces together fragments of archives, crew lists, and family lore to breathe life into the past and paints a raw and compelling portrait of working-class survival in the 19th century. If you've ever wondered who your ancestors really were-beyond the birthdates and gravestones-this novel offers a moving glimpse. Raw, vivid, and unflinchingly human, Itinerant Soul reminds us that history lives not just in textbooks, but in us. At its heart, this is a story about the enduring bonds of family-and the way ordinary lives shape extraordinary legacies.
