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Monsieur Caloche single work   short story   satire  
First known date: 1878 Issue Details: First known date: 1878... 1878 Monsieur Caloche
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

A Frenchman seeks work and ends up at a cattle station, where he has trouble settling into his new role. 

Notes

  • First published in the Australasian in 1878

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon In Australian Wilds and Other Colonial Tales and Sketches Philip Dearman Mennell (editor), Sydney : Edwards, Dunlop and Company , 1889 Z531639 1889 anthology short story prose travel Sydney : Edwards, Dunlop and Company , 1889 pg. 77-107
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A Sydney Sovereign and Other Tales Tasma , New York (City) : F. F. Lovell , 1889 Z828942 1889 selected work short story novella London : Trubner , 1890 pg. 188-216
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Round-Up : Stories From 1790 to 1950 Colin Roderick (editor), Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1953 Z412675 1953 anthology short story Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1953 pg. 44-59
    Note: Illus., drawing, black and white
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon From the Verandah : Stories of Love and Landscape by Nineteenth Century Australian Women Fiona Giles (editor), Fitzroy Ringwood : McPhee Gribble Penguin , 1987 Z373115 1987 anthology short story extract Fitzroy Ringwood : McPhee Gribble Penguin , 1987 pg. 11-26
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Eclipsed : Two Centuries of Australian Women's Fiction C. J. Burns (editor), Marygai McNamara (editor), Sydney : Collins , 1988 Z446860 1988 anthology short story humour satire Sydney : Collins , 1988 pg. 82-101
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Best Australian Short Stories Mary Lord (editor), Ringwood : Penguin , 1991 Z307411 1991 anthology short story extract humour satire crime historical fiction (taught in 1 units) Ringwood : Penguin , 1991 pg. 77-95
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A Sydney Sovereign Tasma , Michael Ackland (editor), Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1993 Z956336 1993 selected work short story Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1993 pg. 95-116
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Women's Stories : An Oxford Anthology Kerryn Goldsworthy (editor), South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1999 Z198049 1999 anthology short story extract

    'This anthology, unprecedented for its subject, gathers together twenty-nine of the sharpest and most entertaining stories written by Australian women from the early nineteenth century to the late 1990s. Selected by acclaimed critic and writer Kerryn Goldsworthy--editor of the highly successful Australian Love Stories--the stories cover a wide range of styles and subject matter. Included in the collection are the works of well-known writers such as Henry Handel Richardson and Christina Stead, those of contemporary authors Elizabeth Jolley, Beverley Farmer, Kate Grenville, Carmel Bird, and Beth Yahp, and a generous selection from the work of Asian, Aboriginal, and European Australian writers. With a strong local or regional emphasis the volume vividly moves readers from Thea Astley's North Queensland and Carmel Bird's Tasmania to Helen Garner's Carlton and Fitzroy. This volume is sure to be the definitive introduction for years to come to the rich and accomplished tradition of fiction by Australian women.' (Publication summary) 

    South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1999
    pg. 33-52
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction Ken Gelder (editor), Rachael Weaver (editor), Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2007 Z1415120 2007 anthology short story extract horror mystery science fiction historical fiction children's (taught in 7 units)

    'This anthology collects the best examples of Australian gothic short stories from colonial times. Demonic bird cries, grisly corpses, ghostly women and psychotic station-owners populate a colonial landscape which is the stuff of nightmares.

    'In stories by Marcus Clarke, Mary Fortune and Henry Lawson, the colonial homestead is wracked by haunted images of murder and revenge. Settlers are disoriented and traumatised as they stumble into forbidden places and explorers disappear, only to return as ghostly figures with terrible tales to tell. These compelling stories are the dark underside to the usual story of colonial progress, promise and nation-building, and reveal just how vivid the gothic imagination is at the heart of Australian fiction.' (Publication summary)

    Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2007
    pg. 87-104
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature Nicholas Jose (editor), Kerryn Goldsworthy (editor), Anita Heiss (editor), David McCooey (editor), Peter Minter (editor), Nicole Moore (editor), Elizabeth Webby (editor), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009 Z1590615 2009 anthology correspondence diary drama essay extract poetry prose short story (taught in 23 units)

    'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

    'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

    'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

    'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

    'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

    Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.

    Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009
    pg. 197-212

Works about this Work

Worldly Reading : Teaching Australian Literature in the Twenty-first Century Larissa McLean-Davies , Susan K. Martin , Lucy Buzacott , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: English in Australia , vol. 52 no. 3 2017; (p. 21-30)

'This paper examines the role of literature in the English classroom in Australia and its part in shaping national identity. We contend that it is important to consider the possible roles of national literatures in contemporary school contexts, where students are becoming local and global citizens and argue that reading Australian literature as a part of the field of ‘world literature’ can support a pedagogical approach which enables dynamic reading practices. Drawing on a 2016 research project titled Teaching Australia, which sought to explore English teachers’ engagement with Australian texts, this paper examines current and future uses of Australian literature in both the globalised world and in the Australian secondary English classroom.' (Publication abstract)

The Centaur and the Cyborg : Abject Becoming on the Colonial Frontier Elizabeth McMahon , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 67 no. 1-2 2007; (p. 211-225)
The Mysterious Edward/Ellen De Lacy Evans : The Picaresque in Real Life Mimi Colligan , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: The La Trobe Journal , Autumn no. 69 2002; (p. 59-68)
Transvestism and Colonial Narratives of Itinerancy and Settlement Elizabeth McMahon , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: Outskirts : Feminisms along the Edge , May vol. 6 no. 2000;
'In Australian fiction from the colonial period onward the transvestite is a recurrent figure in those rural and bush settings which function as metonyms of Australia, and onto which mythologies of distinctively Australian identities are so often invented. Transvestites continued their service of traversing rural Australia into the 1990s, mapping out spaces for identity formation in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), however this essay will focus on three narratives from the colonial period, to examine the deployment of transvestism in fiction written in the period leading up to Australian Federation in 1901. Such a focus is timely at the advent of the centenary of Federation in 2001 in its investigation of an enduring trope of white Australian identity and its relationship to the occupation and settlement of place. Examination of the operations of transvestic tropism identifies the literal fictionality of such claims by their situation in a highly conventional Romantic aesthetic and epistemology. The texts I will focus on are: Joseph Furphy's Such is Life, published in 1903 but written mostly in the 1890s, Tasma's "Monsieur Caloche" (1889), and Ernest Favenc's "The Parson's Blackboy" (1893)' (Lead paragraph).
Australia Crossed-Over : Images of Cross-Dressing in Australian Art Elizabeth McMahon , 1997 single work criticism
— Appears in: Art And Australia , vol. 34 no. 3 1997; (p. 372-379)
McMahon discusses the way in which 'from the early colonial period, transvestism has been deployed as a central motif or conceit in Australian visual art, photography and film, as well as in ballads, literary narratives and drama (p.374).
The Centaur and the Cyborg : Abject Becoming on the Colonial Frontier Elizabeth McMahon , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 67 no. 1-2 2007; (p. 211-225)
Australia Crossed-Over : Images of Cross-Dressing in Australian Art Elizabeth McMahon , 1997 single work criticism
— Appears in: Art And Australia , vol. 34 no. 3 1997; (p. 372-379)
McMahon discusses the way in which 'from the early colonial period, transvestism has been deployed as a central motif or conceit in Australian visual art, photography and film, as well as in ballads, literary narratives and drama (p.374).
Transvestism and Colonial Narratives of Itinerancy and Settlement Elizabeth McMahon , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: Outskirts : Feminisms along the Edge , May vol. 6 no. 2000;
'In Australian fiction from the colonial period onward the transvestite is a recurrent figure in those rural and bush settings which function as metonyms of Australia, and onto which mythologies of distinctively Australian identities are so often invented. Transvestites continued their service of traversing rural Australia into the 1990s, mapping out spaces for identity formation in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), however this essay will focus on three narratives from the colonial period, to examine the deployment of transvestism in fiction written in the period leading up to Australian Federation in 1901. Such a focus is timely at the advent of the centenary of Federation in 2001 in its investigation of an enduring trope of white Australian identity and its relationship to the occupation and settlement of place. Examination of the operations of transvestic tropism identifies the literal fictionality of such claims by their situation in a highly conventional Romantic aesthetic and epistemology. The texts I will focus on are: Joseph Furphy's Such is Life, published in 1903 but written mostly in the 1890s, Tasma's "Monsieur Caloche" (1889), and Ernest Favenc's "The Parson's Blackboy" (1893)' (Lead paragraph).
Oscar Wilde in Eve Langley's White Topee: The Transvestic Origins of the Australian Self Made Man Elizabeth McMahon , 1996 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , Spring vol. 56 no. 3 1996; (p. 102-114)
Why Do All These Women Have Moustaches? : Gender, Boundary and Frontier in "Such is Life" and "Monsieur Caloche" Susan K. Martin , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southern Review , March vol. 25 no. 1 1992; (p. 68-77)
Martin examines the relationship between the geographical boundaries and the boundaries of the body that enable Tom Collins to make sense of the world. Martin argues that the male-like females threaten the boundaries and simple binary divisions by which Tom Collins navigates the world. Any male/female partnerships such as Tom and Jim or the two Alfs do not create neat binary structures, but form ambiguous cross-gender doubling. This ambiguity indicates the permeability of supposed gender boundaries, leading Martin to argue that if women are read as a metaphor for land in Such is Life, the land suffers the same ambiguity.
Last amended 5 Sep 2022 16:17:50
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