The admirable Special Collections section at Townsville’s James Cook University library has two editions of a rare novel ( above ) with an intriguing title : WINNING A WIFE IN AUSTRALIA A Story drawn on Actual Experiences and Illustrative of Life in the Present Day Antipodes, by A. Donnison , published by Ward, Lock and Bowden , London , New York and Melbourne , in the 1890s.
One copy has a frontispiece by Geo Hutchinson, dated 1894 , which portrays a terrified girl, hatless, perhaps even riding side saddle , on a galloping horse , stretched out like Black Caviar , pursued by a man –apparently a dastardly striking Queensland shearer - on another steed.
The author informs the reader that Australian life is full of activity that belongs to an untrammelled race ... In l891 , he wrote , Australia’s human population was only four million , on the other hand , sheep numbered some 100,000,000 and we were just about up to our armpits in wool bales , going on the export statistics. It would appear that the industrial unrest in various parts of the nation in the 1890s and the great shearers’ strikes which led to the birth of the Australian Labour Party is reflected in this novel as part of the action takes part on a sheep station out west of Rockhampton.
The novel opens with one Arthur Ogilvy strolling along Circular Quay, Sydney, where the ferries ply their trade. Enter la femme , she slips, drops a package into the harbour . Gallant Arthur ,who is carrying an umbrella in sunny Sydney, perhaps having recently arrived from the Old Dart , where the weather is notoriously bad, fishes out the package with the brolly, she thanks the kind sir. This could be the beginning of a grand romance under the Southern Cross, you would think. The Sydney Morning Herald office is nearby ... an ideal place in which to announce an engagement if this sloppy first encounter progresses towards matrimony, a win-win situation for both parties .
The title page of the above mentioned edition bears another illustration which , strangely, shows a gentleman in frock coat, holding a bowler hat , in an art gallery , seated on a chair , deeply engrossed in a painting, as if the alluring Mona Lisa . A buttoned up demure female , wearing a hat and also carrying an umbrella , seems to be eyeing this odd bod who is mesmerised by the mysterious painting . A pointer to a page deep within the text reveals that the man was none other than Arthur Ogilvy who had been promenading along the waterfront in the opening scene. It says the painting had plunged him into some kind of mysterious ” reverie.”
The woman in the gallery turns out to be the artist who did the painting ; Arthur , tears himself away from the entrancing picture, they lock eyes and it seems they both recognise each other , perhaps from that episode on the waterfront in the opening of the book, years ago.
What happens next in the plot would defy even the fertile mind of Jackie Collins to dream up. The woman, identified as Claire , tells obviously besotted Arthur that she is married , but it is not a marriage made in Heaven. She is unhappy. On receiving this information , Arthur , believe it or not, FAINTS ! Yes, his droopy moustache swinging in the breeze, Arthur limp falls like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers . Is this Artie chap some kind of sook , a fop or a mummy’s boy? Eventually , he comes to and reveals that he is really a man of action as he suggest she get a divorce ! Strong stuff for those days-what would the vicar say?
At this stage ,the plot is a bit unclear , a few other women become involved, and it is not absolutely certain if it is the highly desirable Claire – inconveniently hitched to a bloke called Jack - who gets a telegram to go out west of Rockhampton to help run daddy’s sheep station.
Exciting chapters in the book have headings such as : A brisk gallop ; A kangaroo at bay; Half married ; In the hospital; Squatters’ troubles ; Her ride for honour and The nymph abandoned, the latter sounding like the Perils of Pauline . Without revealing too much more of this little known , epic Australian classic , there is the aforementioned chase on horseback , police lumbering striking sheep shearers, many of them drunk. As to whether or not Claire and Arthur fall victim to Cupid’s arrows and enter a state of wedded bliss , you will have to wait for the TV adaptation , probably screened after Underbelly finishes in 2018.
Both editions of the book perused by Little Darwin’s wandering oddity roundsman at the university announced another book uniform with this work was AUSTRALIAN MILLIONAIRE , by Mrs A. Blitz . Just imagine how wonderful it would be if you could win the hand of an Aussie girl whose daddy was a millionaire sheep farmer who also owned the Koala Bear Brewery , the fantasy of many a modern Australian lad with aspirations above his station.
One copy of this memorable read , in the Colonial Library series, has an early Australian coat of arms on the back cover; scattered throughout is the stamp of the Ardmona Fruit Growers’ Institute Free Library.
