Rigby's Romance - Paperback

by Joseph Furphy (Author), Mint Editions (Contribution by)

Rigby's Romance (1921) is a novel by Joseph Furphy. Written under his pseudonym "Tom Collins," Rigby's Romance is a sequel of sorts to Such is Life, a unique and challenging story that took decades to achieve a proper audience. Earning comparisons to the works of Melville and Twain, Furphy's novel is considered a landmark of Australian literature. "Just as a bale of wool is dumped, by hydraulic pressure, to less than half its normal size, I scientifically compressed something like twenty-four hours' sleep into the interval between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. Then a touch of what you call dyspepsia and I call laziness, kept me debating with myself for another swift-running hour." Between such beguiling narration and lively conversations with the characters he meets on his travels through the Australian outback, Tom Collins presents himself as a philosophizing everyman, a prototype of such characters as Joyce's Leopold Bloom and Beckett's Molloy. Journeying in search of his friend Jefferson Rigby, a gentleman and adventurer like himself, Collins reflects on their history together and longs for his company. When the two meet up, they engage in a long discussion on politics and the nature of humanity, touching on topics as strange and diverse as Australia's legendary wildlife. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Joseph Furphy's Rigby's Romance is a classic work of Australian literature reimagined for modern readers.

Back Jacket

Narrated by a philosophizing, wandering gentleman, this story of the Australian outback unfolds in fits in starts, forming an abstract portrait of life in one of Earth's harshest environments. Part wiseman, part working man, Tom Collins is a classic unreliable narrator with an eye for the weird and wonderful. Rigby's Romance is a novel by Joseph Furphy.