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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 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
TRANSLATIONS
ADULT BOOKS
WAR BOOKS
STORIES AND POEMS
FAVOURITES
BOOKS ABOUT ETHEL TURNER
FOOTNOTES
2. Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 6, 1894, p. 4. 3. Ethel Turner, Seven Little Australians, Montville, Qld., Walter McVitty Books, 1994, p. 104.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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