Penguin Best Australian Short Stories

by Mary Lord (editor)

Set in cities, in suburbia and in the outback, this selection of short stories explores the subtleties, the humour and the sadness of human life. This book includes stories by E. Dyson, E. Jolley, M. Wilding, P. Carey and T. Winton.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Australia, Anthologies

345 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Ape · Rating 4 out of 5]

2009 bookcrossing journal:

I have been reading this book on and off for the last few months. Not that it is a bad book, just that you can't get stuck into short stories the same way as a novel, and I would read one story now and then and enjoy the stories.

I guess like all collections of stories, you like some more than others. This was an interesting collection though, as it kind of took you through over 100 years of Australian history. The collection was published in 1998, and the earliest story in it was written in 1859. The stories start off in the countryside, and gradually move into more urban areas as time moves on. I liked some of the old stories and some of the new, but over all I probably enjoyed the stories from the 1800s more. There was a Henry Lawson story in there, and I really like his writing. I read a collection of his stories the other year.

So bad in the beginnings, when it was pioneering times, life was rough and tough, and men were men and the women were sometimes shocked by them... "Never had she seen anything so grotesquely monkeyish." (p165 - Barbara Baynton). That line made me laugh when I read it, so I thought I had to write it down somewhere for posterity! The story "Pretty Dick" was really good for creating the atmosphere of the bush and the outback; and I liked the story "The Golden Shanty" about this Irishman who owed this hotel that was in the middle of nowhere and falling to bits, then suddenly gets a lot of customers from the new Chinese camp... except they start stealing the bricks his hotel is built of.

There's also a strong theme of immigration throughout this book, and there are characters of all kinds of nationalities appearing in the stories. Some of the modern ones feel like they are trying to be a bit clever sometimes; the story "The Train" is really quite dark... oh, and because this is a book about Australia, there is a short story called "Neighbours"... everybody needs good neighbours... but it's not set on Ramsey Street.

I have another book of short stories by Australian writers kicking around somewhere. I shall have to dig that one out sometime.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read these short stories one a day. Some were more light-hearted than others.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presented in chronological order from 1859 to modern day, this Australian collection provides insight into the issues and concerns of their period. Unlike many modern writers, most of these early writers do not feel the need to provide a "surprise" ending, but rather let the story stand alone. That is enough to commend them as far as I'm concerned.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't actually read all of the stories yet: I've read the ones that correspond to a list of Australian Women Writers tagged Gen 4: women who began writing in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.  Because what is really good about this collection under the editorship of Mary Lord is, as she says in the Introduction:

...not another arrangement of regularly anthologised evergreens, but a collection that introduces readers to less well-known but still first-rate stories by outstanding writers, and to the work of some others not so well known whose writing has been overlooked or neglected. (p.1)

So there are some interesting rarities in the Table of Contents, which I reproduce on the blog in case anyone is searching for those that are less well-known.  But in terms of Bill's list of AWW4 writers, disappointingly there were none who were new to me in the collection.  So for the purposes of this post, I just read authors he'd listed.  

I began with Elizabeth Jolley's 'A Gentleman's Agreement' published in 1976.  The twist in the tail made me laugh, as Jolley's wicked sense of humour so often does.  Narrated by an adolescent daughter, it's about a humble family (fatherless, with no explanation as to why or how), whose mother makes a living by charring.  She likes to give the poor people from down her street a bit of pleasure, so when the owners are absent from their luxury apartments, she lets the poor neighbours in to have wedding receptions and parties in the penthouse.  

This does, of course, cause extra work for her, and it adds to her responsibility to keep an eye on her father's derelict farm.  It was the kind of place where nothing grew except weeds but it couldn't be sold because Grandpa was still alive in a Home for the Aged, and he wanted to keep the farm though he couldn't do anything with it.  But the time comes when it can be sold, and Mother takes the children there to get it ready for sale.  The ne'er-do-well brother takes to farm life immediately.

It seemed there was nothing my brother couldn't do.  Suddenly after doing nothing in his life he was driving the tractor and making fire breaks, he started to paint the sheds and he told Mother what fencing posts and wire to order. All these things had to be done before the sale could go through. I kept wishing we could live in the house, all at once it seemed lovely there at the top of the sunlit meadow. But I knew that however many acres you have they aren't any use unless you have money too. I think we were all thinking this but no one said anything thought Mother kept looking at my brother and the change in him. (p.247)

Well, the sale goes through, but there is a happy ending for this family of battlers after all.  The irony of the title is a gendered joke in a story featuring a strong independent and wily woman.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find which of Jolley's short story collections includes this title, so if anyone finds it, please let me know. 

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/01/20/t...

[Bree · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this book. The first few stories were interesting and engaging, but I struggled from about page 100 onwards.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of 30 plus short stories, with publication dates ranging from 1859 to 1988!

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

The ghost upon the rail / John George Lang (1859) --3
The dead witness, or The bush waterhole / Mary Fortune ('Waif Wanderer') (1866) --3
Pretty Dick / Marcus Clarke (1873) --3
Monsieur Caloche / Jessie Courvreur ('Tasma') (1889) --2
The golden shanty / Edward Dyson (1890) --2
Parson Ford's confessional / William Astley ('Price Warung') (1892) --3
Far inland football / John Arthur Barry (1893) --2
Dad and the Donovans / Arthur Hoey Davis ('Steele Rudd') (1889) --2
Brighten's sister-in-law / Henry Lawson (1901) --3
Billy Skywonkie / Barbara Baynton (1902) --2
The curse / Katharine Susannah Prichard (1932) --
Conversation in a pantry / Ethel Robertson ('Henry Handel Richardson') (1934) --3
The lottery / Marjorie Barnard (1943) --3
*Miss Slattery and her demon lover / Patrick White (1964) --
Party forty-two and Mrs Brewer / Hal Porter (1965) --
The children / John Morrison (1972) --
Street idyll / Christina Stead (1974) --
The words she types / Michael Wilding (1975) --
A gentleman's agreement / Elizabeth Jolley (1976) --
*The last days of a famous mime / Peter Carey (1979) --
Pride and joy / Morris Lurie (1979) --
On the train / Olga Masters (1982) --
The dark, the light / Helen Garner (1985) --
Caffe Veneto / Beverley Farmer (1985) --
Francois and the fishbone incident / Frank Moorhouse (1985) --
Neighbours / Tim Winton (1985) --4
*After long absence / Janette Turner Hospital (1986) --
Belladonna Gardens / Marion Halligan (1988) --
Acqua alta / Delia Falconer (1997)--

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not a fan of short stories.....especially not boring short stories. A talented short story writer has to grab your attention and make you care about their characters or/and plight within the first few paragraphs, otherwise what is your motivation to keep reading?

And I know this might be 'un-austalian' to say this, especially on Australia Day.....but I don't care for stories that sentimentalise the outback, the bush, the battler or any other cliched clap-trap that I am supposed to identify with as an Australian. There are some great authors in this mix, Katherine Susannah Prichard, Henry Lawson, Henry Hendal Richardson......but I guess short stories may not have been their thing......although my favourite short story that really stood out was Prichard's 'The Curse' Plus where were the short stories from talented Australian authors like Kate Grenville and Robin Klein?

There are better anthologies out there.

[Jenny Downing · Rating 3 out of 5]

This chronological collection was interesting from the point of view of the sociological development of Australian writing. Some gems here - some gruesome writing too!!!

[Jose Puttanani · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very good insight into Australian literature.