y separately published work icon Eccentric Minds : A Novel single work   novel   crime   detective  
Issue Details: First known date: 2004... 2004 Eccentric Minds : A Novel
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'If you have read any of the Bony novels by Arthur Upfield, then you may already have met some of the characters in this book. The Albury College on the Murray River, a Protestant School for Boys, educates sons from the outback of Victoria and New South Wales in Australia. The Head is Hugh Trench from Windee Station, ably assisted by his wife, Marion. The Deputy Head is the Rev. James from Merino near the Walls of China, as ever supported by his wife, Lucy. In the heat of late summer in 1955, Ralph Dugdale arrives at the private boarding school to teach English and atone for the murder of King Henry at Barrakee Station in 1927. At the school are a new Music teacher, Cora Benson from the Grampian Mountains; the Drama teacher, Henrietta Dalton from Broken Hill; and the Master of Upfield House, Mr Jelly from Western Australia. Indeed most of the staff have mysterious backgrounds. By the end of the school year the past will have caught up with several of them '(Publisher blurb 2010 edition).

Notes

  • This novel is presented as a 'homage' to Arthur Upfield and the characters of his Bony series.
  • Dedication:

    For Arthur Upfield

    In Memorium

  • Epigraph:

    And the sun sank again on the grand Australian bush - the nurse and tutor of eccentric minds, the home of the weird, and of much that is different from things in other lands.

    -Henry Lawson, The Bush Undertaker (1894)

    A long term of self-communion in the back country will never leave a man as it found him. Outside his daily avocation, he becomes a fool or a philosopher...

    -Tom Collins, Such is Life (1903)

    The back country of Australia carries men who are known from station to station for some outstanding mental kink. The solitude of the Never-Never breeds them...

    -Erle Cox, Out of the Silence (1925)

    'Drama and a little comedy mixed with the spoon of tranquillity give the cake of life,' he said to the watching crow. 'Drama without comedy or comedy without drama produces the soddy dough of phantasmagoria.'

    -Arthur Upfield, The Bone is Pointed (1938)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Albury, Albury area, Riverina - Murray area, New South Wales,: Letao , 2004 .
      Extent: 314p.
      Note/s:
      • Includes author's note pp. 313-314
      ISBN: 1876940158
    • Raleigh, North Carolina,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Graham Jackson ,
      2010 .
      Printed/distributed by Lulu.com
      Alternative title: Eccentric Minds : A Homage to the Bony Novels of Arthur Upfield
      Extent: 260p.
      ISBN: 9781445782751

Works about this Work

In Short : Fiction Michael McGirr , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9-10 April 2005; (p. 26)

— Review of Eccentric Minds : A Novel Graham Jackson , 2004 single work novel ; TruckDogs : A Novel in Four Bites Graeme Base , 2003 single work children's fiction ; Alison Says Suzanne Hawley , 2005 single work novel
In Short : Fiction Michael McGirr , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9-10 April 2005; (p. 26)

— Review of Eccentric Minds : A Novel Graham Jackson , 2004 single work novel ; TruckDogs : A Novel in Four Bites Graeme Base , 2003 single work children's fiction ; Alison Says Suzanne Hawley , 2005 single work novel
Last amended 6 Jul 2016 15:20:04
Subjects:
  • Bony Arthur W. Upfield , 1929 series - author novel
Settings:
  • Albury, Albury area, Riverina - Murray area, New South Wales,
  • 1940s
Influenced by:
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