The first full length autobiography written in Australia, and an uncensored picture of criminal life in London and the convict system in Australia. Vaux was sentenced to transportation at the age of 18 in 1800, and eventually returned to London as a free man in 1807 on the same ship as Marsden and Governor King, who employed him as an official secretary. Nevertheless, he ended up back in Sydney again as a convict in 1810. After more trouble in the colony he was sent to Newcastle, where he completed a slang dictionary for the use of magistrates. Judge Barron Field edited his memoirs and arranged for their publication, with the slang dictionary appended.

The first full length autobiography written in Australia, and an uncensored picture of criminal life in London and the convict system in Australia. Vaux was sentenced to transportation at the age of 18 in 1800, and eventually returned to London as a free man in 1807 on the same ship as Marsden and Governor King, who employed him as an official secretary. Nevertheless, he ended up back in Sydney again as a convict in 1810. After more trouble in the colony he was sent to Newcastle, where he completed a slang dictionary for the use of magistrates. Judge Barron Field edited his memoirs and arranged for their publication, with the slang dictionary appended.

A contemporary English magazine described the work as "one of the most singular that ever issued from the press". Vaux was still leading a life of crime when he was last heard of in Sydney in 1841. An abridged edition of his book was published in 1827, and later editions appeared in 1829 and 1830.

This is a later impression of the second edition, published as part of the twenty volume series of notable autobiographies by Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot. The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux was first published in 1819.