Bring Larks and Heroes is a 1967 novel by Australian author Thomas Keneally[1] which won the Miles Franklin Award in 1967.

[2] The novel is set in an unidentified Penal colony in the South Pacific, which bears a superficial resemblance to Sydney.

The novel is concerned with the exploits of the colony's "felons" (a term which was not in general use at the time the novel is set, which Keneally explains his use of in a brief preface as being more appropriate than "convicts"), in particular an Irish Marine named Phelim Halloran.

He is the first novelist to use Australia's colonial past intelligently, neither sentimentalising it as woozy bush-balladry nor turning it into an ersatz myth".

[4] Leonard Ward in The Canberra Times: "Thomas Keneally's writing style is smooth and economical of words with sometimes a curious lilt to them, even when he is dealing in brutality and tragedy.