(Re)presenting the "Socialist Core of Furphy's Vision": Rigby's Romance as typescript, serial and book

Osborne, Roger

Abstract

When Joseph Furphy responded to editorial pressure from the Bulletin Publishing Company to shorten Such is Life to expedite publication, he did so by removing two chapters from the 1898 typescript version and replacing them with much shorter ones. The two chapters he removed took on a life of their own when he revised and expanded them to become The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Rigby's Romance. To date, little is known about the textual and publication history of these novels. To address this gap, this article examines the textual history of Rigby's Romance, detailing its publication as a serial in Broken Hill's Barrier Truth, its abridgement published in 1921, and the publication of the unabridged version in 1946. The article argues that, in order to best understand the legacy of Joseph Furphy and his work, any reading of Rigby's Romance and, by association, Such is Life, must engage with the ways in which the versions of the work are entangled in the lives of editors, publishers, critics and general readers.

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Journal of Australian Studies

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1835-6419

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Routledge

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DOI

10.1080/14443058.2019.1685560