Squizzy Taylor’s Storied Life as Told by His Friends and Foes

Through a chorus of voices from those who loved, loathed, and feared him, Squizzy Taylor’s Storied Life paints a vivid portrait of Melbourne’s most notorious anti-hero in the early 20th century.

Rising from a junior member of the Bourke Street Rats to the undisputed ‘Tzar’ of the underworld, he moved through crooked pony racing, petty theft, blackmail, pimping, and ultimately murder, becoming a talented but flawed figure who, through his exploits, captured public fascination.

Often suspected but rarely convicted, Squizzy Taylor was renowned as ‘the man who made the bullets for others to fire’… until his own life ended in a hail of bullets in a dingy Carlton house in October 1927