The Buln-Buln and the Brolga

Excerpt

LIKE Rigby's Romance, The Buln-buln and the Brolga originally formed a chapter of Such is Life, and was detached with it to reduce the length of that book. Furphy at first planned to join these portions together as the basis of another novel. "The two segregated chapters," he wrote to his friend Cathels on 14 May 1901, "will go far to compose a second book. They will include my ideal liar in his full integrity, his wife, Barefooted Bob, and Jeff Rigby the agitator, also the whole scene at the fishing meeting. Two stories, in fact, loosely federated, The Lyre Bird and Rigby's Romance." By 18 October, however, he had decided to separate these and work on the "remodelling and elaboration" of each.