[1][5] Gould evidently moved around England quite a bit, and on 7 November 1826 he was convicted in Northampton, East Midlands, of having by "force of arms stolen one coat", and was subsequently sentenced to "seven years beyond the seas",[1] a phrase indicating transportation to the then British penal colony of Australia.

During the voyage Gould's brig, the Cyprus, became weather bound in the isolated Recherche Bay some 100 kilometres (62 mi) south of Hobart, where half the convicts aboard mutinied and took the ship.

Lieutenant Governor Sir George Arthur commuted the sentences of the convicts who had remained with the officers, and Gould was assigned as a house servant to the colonial surgeon Dr James Scott.

[1][5] An amateur naturalist, Scott put Gould's artistic talents to use, having him paint watercolours of native flora regarded even today as being of a high technical standard.

Based on his reputation from his time with Scott, Gould was assigned as house servant to another amateur natural historian, Dr William de Little on Sarah Island at the penal station.

Gould was granted his Certificate of freedom from Port Arthur on 25 June 1835, and worked briefly for a coachbuilder in Launceston in the north of Tasmania, before returning to Hobart and marrying Ann Reynolds in 1836.

[1] The State Library of New South Wales holds landscapes in oil and watercolour drawings of Tasmanian Aboriginals, including Towterer of the Port Davey area c.1833.

This book is a fictionalised account of Gould's life in Van Diemen's Land, focussing on his time at Macquarie Harbour and his work on the Sketchbook of fishes.

The book includes a reproduction of Gould's Common seadragon painting on the cover (although the actual image used varies depending on the edition), and other works from the sketchbook as the twelve chapter frontispieces.