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Joseph Furphy
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Furphy
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Pseudonym:
Tom Collins
Born:
Sept. 26, 1843, Yering, near Yarra Glen, Vic., Australia
Died:
Sept. 13, 1912, Claremont, W. Aus., Australia (aged 68)
Notable Works:
“Such Is Life”
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Furphy
Furphy

Joseph Furphy

Australian author
Also known as: Tom Collins
Written and fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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•History

Joseph Furphy (born Sept. 26, 1843, Yering, near Yarra Glen, Vic., Australia—died Sept. 13, 1912, Claremont, W. Aus., Australia) was an Australian author whose novels combine an acute sense of local Australian life and colour with the eclectic philosophy and literary ideas of a self-taught workingman.

The son of Irish immigrants, Furphy worked as a thresher, teamster, and gold miner before settling down in 1884 at his brothers’ foundry at Shepparton. There he wrote a picaresque novel, Such Is Life (1903), written as excerpts from the diary of Tom Collins. Furphy’s other major works, Rigby’s Romance (serialized 1905; published in book form, 1921) and The Buln Buln and the Brolga (published posthumously in 1948), were written from chapters cut from the original of Such Is Life. His Poems were published in 1916.

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