Jocoserious ‘Ignorance Shifting’ or ‘Aestho-Psycho-Eugenics’?: Interrogating Joseph Furphy’s Bulletin ‘apprenticeship’

Abstract

Annotating Joseph Furphy’s first publication for the Bulletin raises some intriguing questions: to what extent was Furphy the product of the Bulletin writing academy, the late nineteenth century equivalent of a writing course, or to what extent was his talent sui generis? I intend to put this question to an extreme test, by reading closely his first published contribution to the Bulletin in 1889, ‘The Mythical Sundowner’.