Author: Tom Collins [Joseph Furphy].
Title: Such is Life being certain extracts from the diary of Tom Collins.
Description: Sydney, The Bulletin 1903. Octavo publisher's olive cloth blocked in dark green and red (spine a little browned, a dash of flecking to the sides). Clipped review of Furphy's poems pasted to the the preliminary advertisement leaf. A pretty good copy. ¶ First edition - and hard to find in decent shape - of one of Australia's two great novels of the colonial period and undoubtedly the best Irish novel to come out of Australia. Clarke's His Natural Life is a Victorian English novel while Such is Life is Irish and modern - in the way that Tristram Shandy is: discursive, discontinuous and playful with both language and the reader.

Keywords: literature fiction c19th c20th Australia