The Tragedy of Donohoe (1835; retitled The Bushrangers, a Play in Five Acts in 1853, The Bush-Rangers in 1860 and Stalwart the Bushranger in 1867) is a play by Charles Harpur.
Harpur wrote The Tragedy of Donhoe while living in Sydney in the early 1830s. It was originally based on the life of Jack Donahue, a prominent bushranger who had murdered William Clements in 1828.[1] Harpur continually revised the play, however, and in later versions he renamed the protagonist "Stalwart" and his victim "Abel".[2] By the time he died, Harpur had produced at least four distinct versions of the play.[2][3] The play's complex textual history began in 1834, when Harpur presented a manuscript to Edward Smith Hall, the editor of The Sydney Monitor.[4] Hall was impressed with the play,[5] and published substantial extracts in the newspaper the following February.[4] Harpur published the first complete version of the play in 1853, as part of his book The Bushrangers, a Play in Five Acts, and Other Poems. He produced two final versions of the play, The Bush-Rangers in 1860 and Stalwart the Bushranger 1867; these versions remained in manuscript at his death.[6][2]
The Tragedy of Donohoe is considered an important example of Gothic literature, nineteenth-century melodrama and Romantic tragedy.[7][8]