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Book
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Month -- July 2026
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James Freney was a notorious Irish
highwayman of the 18th Century. Known as "Captain" Freney because he
was the leader of a gang, who terrorised the roads and robbed the
houses of the
well-to-do in County Kilkenny and Waterford for five years in the 1740's. His exploits and daring escapes from the
lawmen
made him a folk hero, but the net was closing in on him in 1749. So he
made a
deal with the authorities where he would betray all his associates in
return
for clemency and a subsidy to emigrate. The gang were all hanged, and
the
clemency was forthcoming, but the subsidy was not. In order to make a little money, he published his memoirs, which
were very popular in Ireland for many years.
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AboutUs
The Ex-Classics project was founded in 2000 to fill an unmet need. When reading the blurb etc. to a book by Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte, say, we would often come across sentences like "Favourite reading included . . ." If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us. So off we go to the library or bookshop, to be met first with blank stares and then with the information that the book has been out of print for decades. Our first two books were Gil Blas and Hudibras, which are prime examples of this. This web site is dedicated to rescuing these works from obscurity and making them available online, both for reading directly, and for downloading.
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