Editing Joseph Furphy (section)

==Literary career==
{{Quote box
|width   = 25em
|bgcolor = #F9F9F9
|align   = right
|quote   = "I have just finished writing a full-sized novel; title, ''Such is Life''; the scene, Riverina and northern Vic; temper, democratic; bias, offensively Australian."
|source  =  {{mdash}} Furphy's famous self-introduction to [[J. F. Archibald]], published in ''[[The Bulletin (Australian periodical)|The Bulletin]]'', April 1897<ref>''[[The Bulletin (Australian periodical)|The Bulletin]]'', April 1897</ref>
}}
In his youth Furphy had written many verses and in December 1867 he had been awarded the first prize of £3 at the Kyneton Literary Society for a vigorous set of verses on 'The [[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|Death of President Lincoln']].<ref name=ADB/> While living at Shepparton, he was encouraged in his writing by Kate Baker, a schoolteacher<ref name=ADB/> who boarded with his mother. He sent a story 'The Mythical Sundowner' to ''[[The Bulletin (Australian periodical)|The Bulletin]]'' under the name 'Warrigal Jack' and it was accepted for publication.<ref name=":0" /> Later works were published under the pseudonym 'Tom Collins' which may have come from the slang term meaning "a fellow about town whom many sought to kill for touching them on 'sore points'".<ref name=":0" />

His most famous work is ''[[Such Is Life (novel)|Such Is Life]]'', a fictional account of the life of rural dwellers, including [[bullocky|bullock drivers]], squatters and itinerant travellers, in southern [[New South Wales]] and [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], during the 1880s.<ref name=ADB/><ref name=":2" /> In 1897 the manuscript was sent to ''The Bulletin'' where [[A. G. Stephens]] recognised its worth,<ref name=ADB/> but also that it was not a commercial proposition. He suggested cuts including the replacement of two entire chapters.<ref name=ADB/> Stephens persuaded the proprietors of ''The Bulletin'' to publish the revised ''Such Is Life'' because it was a great Australian work although not commercially viable. It was published in 1903<ref name=ADB/> under his pseudonym 'Tom Collins'<ref name=":0" /> and only sold about a third of the print run. Through the efforts of Kate Baker who bought the residual copies from ''The Bulletin'', later editions were brought out after Furphy's death 

Having removed the original chapters 2 and 5 from ''Such is Life'', Furphy considered joining these portions together as the basis for another novel but instead decided to focus on chapter 5 separately.<ref>{{cite book|last=Devlin-Glass|first=F. |date=1991 |editor-last=Devlin-Glass |editor-first=F. |title=The Annotated Such is Life by Joseph Furphy |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=300–301 |chapter=Textual Note |isbn=}}</ref> He expanded and remodelled the chapter to form ''[[Rigby's Romance]]'', which was serialised in ''[[Barrier Daily Truth|The Barrier Truth]]'' from 27 October 1905 to 20 July 1906. It would be released in book form in 1921.<ref name=austlit>[http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C58100 Austlit - ''Rigby's Romance'' by Joseph Furphy]</ref> After moving to Western Australia in 1905, Furphy commenced work on revising the original second chapter, which he titled ''The Lyre Bird and the Native Companion'' before retitling it ''The Buln-Buln and the Brolga''. Never published in his lifetime, the manuscript was provided by Furphy's son Samuel and ultimately published in book form in 1946.<ref>{{cite book|last=Furphy|first=Joseph|editor-last=Howarth|editor-first=R. G.|date=1946|title=The Buln-Buln and the Brolga|location=Sydney|publisher=Angus & Robertson|page=2}}</ref> Both of these subsequent novels feature the same [[protagonist]], Tom Collins, and function as adjuncts to the first novel.