Joseph Furphy

Joseph Furphy was an Australian novelist, poet, farmer, and bullock driver who wrote under the name Tom Collins. His years carrying goods through the Riverina supplied experience and voices that later entered Such is Life. Published in 1903, the novel takes the form of extracts from the diary of its narrator and moves through the lives, arguments, and stories of people in the Australian bush. Furphy's digressive method, humour, and close attention to vernacular speech helped secure its distinctive place in Australian literature. The Australian Dictionary of Biography records that he drafted the manuscript while working at his brother's foundry in Shepparton and that the original publication was substantially edited.