On Our Selection

Rudd, Steele, 1868-1935Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 235K words
Chapters: 24

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.On Our Selection by Steele RuddAuthor: Rudd, Steele, 1868-1935,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jan 1, 2003

Editor's review

On Our Selection is the representative work of Australian writer Steele Rudd (1868–1935). In a humorous yet faintly bittersweet tone, it tells the story of a selector family eking out a living in the Queensland countryside. The book is made up of a series of relatively independent short pieces linked together, centering on the daily friction between the Rudd family and the harsh natural environment, their straitened means, and their eccentric neighbors, and creating vivid portraits of the father, the mother, and the many children. Its value lies in recording early Australian agricultural pioneering life in the mode of light comedy; the language is colloquial and the dialogue lively, with most of the humor arising from life's predicaments themselves, making for an easy read that nonetheless conveys an understanding of the resilience of poor immigrant families. As a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it works well as an introductory reader for English literature and Australian cultural background, and also suits readers who want to encounter late nineteenth-century English rural humor through short pieces. It is best read as a succession of sketches of life rather than a tightly plotted novel, savoring the dialect dialogue and character portrayal piece by piece.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English-speaking readers interested in Australian literature and pioneering history
Readers who enjoy rural humorous sketches and want light reading in original English
Cultural researchers seeking to understand late nineteenth-century immigrant farm family life
Upper-intermediate English learners hoping to build language sense through dialogue-based texts

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking a complete novel-length plot and strong narrative tension
Beginners impatient with rural dialect dialogue and early English expressions
Readers hoping for systematic historical verification or scholarly annotation

Reading tips

Read sketch by sketch, reviewing character traits and sources of humor after each piece rather than insisting on continuous plot.
When encountering dialect spellings and colloquial expressions, first guess from context and then verify, avoiding frequent interruptions to the reading rhythm.
Reading alongside background knowledge of the Australian selection system makes it easier to understand the origins of the family's hardships.
Choose two or three favorite chapters and read the dialogue aloud to appreciate how the author shapes characters through conversation.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a short story collection?

It is made up of a series of short stories linked around the same farm family; each piece is relatively independent, with no single thread running throughout. Readers can read in order or pick individual pieces without losing key plot points by skipping around.

Can readers with average English read it?

The book makes heavy use of colloquial dialogue and dialect spellings, which poses some challenge for beginners; readers with upper-intermediate reading ability who can infer word meanings from context will find it easier to get into. It is advisable to try one or two pieces first to assess your comfort level.

What background should I know before reading?

Knowing about late nineteenth-century Australian selector policy helps in understanding why the family in the book lives in hardship and why they constantly struggle with land and debt. Knowing also that this is a work portraying rural life in a humorous mode helps adjust reading expectations.

Comments

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About the author

Rudd, Steele, 1868-1935 Author · Australian · 1868–1935

Rudd, Steele (1868–1935) was an Australian writer whose real name was Arthur Hoey Davis, with Steele Rudd being his customary pen name. He is best known for On Our Selection, a collection of humorous sketches of rural life. Drawing on Australian country experience, the pieces centre on the daily labour, family matters and hardships of pioneer settlers, told in a comic yet warm tone and in a lively, colloquial style that brings out both the difficulty and the humour of bush life. This kind of writing gave him a place in Australian regional literature and has had a lasting influence on later rural writing of a similar kind. Public information on his life and literary career is limited, and the library holds only one of his works, so his literary profile is chiefly understood through the themes and humorous style shown in On Our Selection.