John Sidney came to Australia in 1840. He spent ten years in the colony. On his return to England he told his brother Samuel about his experiences in Australia. Samuel wrote them down and they were published in Household Words 1850-1852. John returned to Australia and sent news back to his brother. Samuel Sidney never visited Australia. His novel Gallops and Gossips in the Bush of Australia is based on his brother's information.
During the early 2000s, on the basis of what he could then establish, Victor Crittenden was under the impression that the four short stories which appear in this selection had been written by John Lang, and so included them in his selection of Lang's stories titled Further Tales from Botany Bay (2005). Crittenden subsequently became aware that the four stories were in fact written by Samuel Sidney, and to set the record straight, republished them in this selection, where they appear with his introductory note.
Note that the works which appear in this selection were reproduced from Household Words, where they were originally published in the early 1850s as stand alone short stories. Sidney subsequently revised all of these stories for inclusion in his novel Gallops and Gossips in the Australian Bush (1854), where they form part of a more continuous narrative.
Gallops and Gossips in the Bush of Australia, or, Passages in the Life of Alfred Barnard
1854
single work
novel
From a roving, largely outdoors, education in England and France, the narrator - an orphan - becomes unfitted for an office profession and emigrates to Australia. The stories recount aspects of his life in the colony. The narrator finally returns to England - near York - for Christmas. He hears sad tales of England's poor but finds rich welcome with his family - and a wife.
