An illywhacker is a confidence trickster, and Herbert Badgery, the 139-year-old narrator of this dazzling comic novel, may be the king of them all.Vagabond and charlatan, aviator and car salesman, seducer and patriarch, Badgery travels across the Australian continent and a century in a picaresque novel full of outlandish encounters and dangerous characters.Overflowing with magic, jokes and inventions, Illywhacker is a contemporary classic.