Childrens Literature Collections
Exhibitions

‘My oath!’
102 Years of Seven Little Australians!


From the Children's Literature Research Collection
and the Ken Pound Collection,
State Library of Victoria
19 February to 8 April 1996

‘My oath!’ says Pip, in the first edition of Seven Little Australians. The occasion is the discovery of Judy, ill and weak from hunger, hidden in the loft, having run away from boarding school. Although Pip says this only to himself and not out loud, it sounded far too close to swearing for acceptance by the Sydney Morning Herald’s book reviewer. Books for children should set a good example in the language department. The reviewer admonished the writer, Ethel Turner. ‘It occurs but once, which is once too often!’ In the second and subsequent editions ‘My word!’ was substituted for the phrase which had offended, but ‘My oath!’ was finally reinstated in the Centennial Edition of 1994.

That there was a Centennial Edition demonstrates the popularity of Seven Little Australians. Over a million copies sold! Translated into ten languages! Produced on stage and on screen! What is there about the book that has endeared Seven Little Australians to generations of readers?

Children of the 1890s enjoyed a book set in Australia. More particularly this one was set in suburban Sydney - readers could identify with Judy and Pip going to the Aquarium and traveling home on the ferry. These were places and activities they knew. Nor was Seven Little Australians about life in the Australian bush. By the 1890s most Australians lived in the cities. A book about suburban children was very relevant.

But the book needed more substance to endure. The Woolcots’ family life provides that substance. The children are all interesting characters, Ethel Turner presenting them with all their little human traits and failings. Their interactions are realistic and the scrapes they get themselves into are both humorous and convincing. Ethel Turner had a special feel for and understanding of children in their exchanges with each other and with the grown-ups in their lives.

The first edition of Seven Little Australians was published in 1894. By 1956, there had been forty-five consecutive editions. After a gap of fifteen years, Ward Lock published a new (1971) edition in anticipation of the release of the A.B.C.’s television series which went to air in 1973. The Ken Pound Collection of Children’s Literature at the State Library of Victoria contains most editions of the book including two copies of the first edition. The exhibition features 17 editions of Seven Little Australians, from the third edition (1895) through to the 1994 Centennial Edition published by Walter McVitty Books.

Such has been the popularity of Seven Little Australians that it has appeared as a stage play in 1915, a film in 1939, a B.B.C. film serial in 1953, an A.B.C. Television serial in 1973 and a musical in 1978. The Movie Section of the Australian Women’s Weekly of December 2, 1939 featured the 1939 film and the same magazine of August 1989 the musical.

BIOGRAPHY

Ethel Turner was born in Doncaster, Yorkshire on 24th January, 1872. She migrated to Australia with her widowed mother, older sister Lilian and step sister, Jeannie in 1880. Educated at Sydney Girls’ High School, she and Lilian wrote stories and edited magazines - first the Iris and then the Parthenon. The Parthenon came out monthly and sold for sixpence a copy, generally selling about 1500 copies per month. Both sisters used pseudonyms to give the impression that the various sections of the magazine were written by a number of contributors, whilst in reality the two sisters did all the writing themselves. Being the younger sister, Ethel was left to do the children’s page.

Ethel went on to write The Children’s Page in the Illustrated Sydney News, which was later taken over by Town and Country Journal. She also contributed to the Bulletin and the English Windsor Magazine.

At the age of 22, Ethel Turner had Seven Little Australians accepted and published by Ward Lock. Interviewed by Life magazine ten years later she related ‘How I wrote Seven Little Australians’. (See display item). The sequel Family at Misrule was published in 1895; the next in the series Little Mother Meg in 1902 and Judy and Punch, the story of Judy’s time away at boarding school, much later , in 1928.

ETHEL TURNER’S PUBLISHERS

Ward, Lock was Ethel Turner’s main publisher. William Steele, Ward, Lock’s Melbourne manager, wanted Seven Little Australians placed in the Lily Gift Book Series but Ethel Turner disliked both the appearance of the series and the idea of being part of an English series. Seven Little Australians instead appeared first in green or red covers with a gilt picture of Judy running across the cover. The covers were different for later editions, but Ward, Lock proceeded to use the same format for the covers of other Australian authors - Mary Grant Bruce, Lilian Turner and Lillian Pyke - thus creating an Australian series. This was also unacceptable to Ethel Turner. She offered four of her books to Hodder and Stoughton who published them in an illustrated edition, with four colour plates in each and a coloured overlay on the cloth covers. Fair Ines (1910), The Apple of Happiness (1911), The Secret of the Sea (1913) and Flower O’ the Pine (1914) appear in the exhibition.

TRANSLATIONS

Ethel Turner’s books have been translated into ten foreign languages. This exhibition includes two Swedish titles - alongside are the original titles in editions of the same period.

ADULT BOOKS

Ethel Turner did not want to be solely a writer of children’s books, but her books written for adults were generally less successful. The first, The Story of a Baby (1895) was written soon after Seven Little Australians. The Ungardeners (1925) is another adult title. Ports and Happy Havens (1912) is a travel book. ‘Child of the Children’, displayed in the exhibition in both its original form as a story from Windsor Magazine and as an individual publication, appears to be the forerunner of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.

WAR BOOKS

Ethel Turner was wholeheartedly committed to Australia’s participation in World War 1. Her war trilogy The Cub (1915), Captain Cub (1917) and Brigid and the Cub (1919) follow the adventures of John Calthrop and advance Ethel Turner’s strong support of England and Empire, conscription and the need for Australian women to support the war effort. She emphasized the classlessness of Australian soldiers and looked forward to a more socially equitable Australia once the war was over.

STORIES AND POEMS

Ethel Turner also wrote poems and short stories. Gum Leaves (1900), Happy Hearts: a Picture Book for Boys and Girls (1908) and The Sunshine Family: a Book of Nonsense for Girls and Boys (1923), co authored by her daughter Jean Curlewis are examples of these.

FAVOURITES

The best known and most widely read of Ethel Turner’s books would appear to be the first four - Seven Little Australians, The Family at Misrule, The Little Larrikin and Miss Bobbie. There are several editions of each on display.

BOOKS ABOUT ETHEL TURNER

Included in this exhibition are:
The Diaries of Ethel Turner (1979), edited by her grand daughter Philippa Poole,
From a Chair in the Sun (1994) by A.T.Yarwood and Seven Little Billabongs: the World of Ethel Turner and Mary Grant Bruce (1979) by Brenda Niall.

FOOTNOTES

1. Ethel Turner, Seven Little Australians, London, Ward, Lock & Bowden, 1894, p. 131

2. Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 6, 1894, p. 4.

3. Ethel Turner, Seven Little Australians, Montville, Qld., Walter McVitty Books, 1994, p. 104.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CATALOGUE
FURTHER READING


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