Author Talk hosted by The National Centre of Biography
The Stained Man: A Crime, a Scandal and the Making of a Nation, by Patrick Mullins
6pm Tuesday 19 May
Award-winning writer and historian Patrick Mullins discusses his latest book with the NCB's Emily Gallagher.
Free Event: Registration is required
The Stained Man: A Crime, a Scandal, and the Making of a Nation (Scribe, 2026) tells the story of Richard 'Dick' Meagher, the Sydney solicitor who incited a campaign to free a man he knew was guilty of attempted murder and subsequently lost it all, including his reputation and ability to practise. This 'work of true crime with a twist' shares one of Australia's greatest scandals and follows Meagher on his twenty-five-year quest to rewrite the ‘Dean case’. In the process, it sheds light on the making of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Australia.
Patrick Mullins is a Canberra-based writer and academic who has a PhD from the University of Canberra. Tiberius with a Telephone, his first book, won the 2020 NSW Premier’s Non-Fiction Award and the 2020 National Biography Award. He is also the author of The Trials of Portnoy: how Penguin brought down Australia’s censorship system.
Emily Gallagher is a historian at the ANU and a research editor with the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Her first book Playtime: A History of Australian Childhood was published with La Trobe University Press/Black Inc. in 2025.