On Our Selection

'Steele Rudd's' first book, is a series of sketches of selection life on the Queensland Darling Downs; it was first published in 1899 and contained twenty-six stories. In 1909, when 'Rudd' sold the rights of On Our Selection and its immediate sequel, Our New Selection, to A.C. Rowlandson of the NSW Bookstall Company, the last ten chapters, deleted from subsequent editions, were included in Stocking Our Selection.

As originally contributed to the Bulletin the On Our Selection sketches were about different families, but, on the suggestion of A.G. Stephens, 'Rudd' reworked them for the book so that they focused on the experiences of the Rudd family, although Steele himself does not emerge as a character until From Selection to City (1909). 'Starting the Selection', the first story, depicts the family's arrival at Shingle Hut from Stanthorpe and Dad's first attempt at sowing a crop; subsequent sketches, of which 'The Night We Watched for Wallabies', 'Cranky Jack' and 'Kate's Wedding', the best known and most anthologised, chronicle the struggle of the family to survive a harsh and fickle climate, the poorness of the soil, and the exploitation of cockatoo farmers like Dad Rudd by store-keeper and squatter alike. There are moments of comedy and indeed high farce in On Our Selection, but the book emphasises the harshness of pioneering life; it was not until Our New Selection and subsequent volumes that the family became relatively comfortable. On Our Selection was a major publishing success; one estimate put its sales to 1940 at 250 000. The sale of the rights to Rowlandson meant, however, that 'Rudd' did not reap the benefits of its popularity, except in higher fees for the rights to his other books. Similarly, the agreement he reached with Bert Bailey and Julius Grant for the stage adaptation of On Our Selection worked to the entrepreneurs' rather than to 'Rudd's' advantage. 'Rudd' had no involvement in the dramatisation of On Our Selection, which was also highly popular for many years after its first production in 1912; a sound film of the play was screened in 1932 and led to three further films starring Bailey as Dad. Both the play and the film were influential in the transformation of Dad and his second son, Dave, into stereotypes of the rural hayseed, although 'Rudd' himself, in resorting primarily to farce in his later work, was also partly responsible. Raymond Longford's classic silent film version (1920) of On Our Selection, with a print of which 'Rudd' toured Australia in 1922, is closer in spirit to the 1899 book.

Previous:	Old Tote Theatre Company, Old Times in the Bush of Australia, Old Tales of a Young Country
Next:	Once a Month: A Magazine for Australasia, Opinion, Our Glass