AustLit

'If the Bush tradition has maintained a masculine grip on the history of Australian literature, that is in no small part due to readings of Joseph Furphy. Such is Life (1903) attacks all its romantic predecessors, from Henry Kingsley to Rudyard Kipling. But Furphy gives particular attention to the lady novelists, whom he depicts as Anglophile, politically reactionary and blind to contemporary social and political conditions. His ridicule of "Ouida" strikes the dominant note for Chapter IV, where Tom Collins's misinterpretations stem from a reading of one of her novels. And, in Chapter VI, he has fun with the idea of "a whole galaxy of Australian authoresses" writing up an Agricultural show.' (Publication abstract)