On Our Selection

Background synopsis

Towards the end of 1895 Davis sent to The Bulletin a sketch Starting The Selection based on his father's experience. The sketch was published on 14 December 1895. Encouraged by J. F. Archibald, the editor and publisher of The Bulletin, Davis continued writing the series of sketches. The stories were originally written about different families but accepting a suggestion by A. G. Stephens, a writer at The Bulletin, the work was reconstructed as the experiences of the Rudd family.

In Australian history, a selection was a "free selection before survey" of crown land under legislation introduced in the 1860s, similar to the United States Homestead Act. Selectors often came into conflict with squatters, who already occupied the land and often managed to circumvent the law.

The Bulletin published the illustrated collection comprising 26 stories in 1899 as On Our Selection. Within four years 20,000 copies had been printed. It afterwards appeared in numerous cheap editions and by 1940 the number of copies sold had reached 250,000.

Contents

Critical reception

A reviewer in The Queenslander, after pointing out that the author was a Queenslander and that the stories were set in Queensland, was very impressed with the work: " It is a volume whose recommendation rests solely on its own excellence, and that excellence is more than sufficiently great to guarantee a hearty welcome and a keen appreciation of "Steele Rudd's" talent...No review of the book would be complete without a reference to the excellent illustrations which enliven its pages. Men in the front rank of Australian artists, like Vincent, Fischer, Lambert, Mahoney, Fullwood, and Leist, have lent their beat energies to catching the author's method, his moods and his types. Usually illustration hinder rather than help the text, but in this case the reverse is the order, and it is doubtful whether anybody could fully understand the personality of Dad, Mother, and the others without Vincent's delightful pen-and-ink sketches."

A reviewer in The Western Mail (Perth) called the collection "really admirable" and went on "As the title implies, the story—or rather the series of sketches—deals with the duties of a family on a New South Wales selection. Anyone reared in the bush in Australia must admit the truthfulness of the study, with its manifold parings and scrapings, its many attempts to evade the miseries of the moneyless, and the vain attempts to make profits on a selection which was, to say the least of it, very unwilling to provide even a living for "Dad" and the rest of them."

Stage and film adaptations

The stories have also been the basis of a play and several films. Davis sold the rights to a stage version of On Our Selection to Bert Bailey. The play was first produced by his company on 4 May 1912 at the Palace Theatre, Sydney. The play version deviated from the original version by the addition of subplots involving murder and a love triangle. Though it did well in Australia, it failed in London in 1920. In 1920, Davis sold the film rights to the stories to producer E.J. Carroll. Carroll did not have the rights to Bert Bailey's play adaptations, so the plot was based directly on the original work. Raymond Longford directed the 1920 silent film version of On Our Selection. In 1932, Bert Bailey's stage version was filmed in a talking film version of the stories. The 1932 film version of On Our Selection was directed by Ken G. Hall, who also co-wrote the script with Bailey. Most of the cast had appeared in the stage version. The movie was one of the most popular Australian films of all time. In 1995, a new version titled Dad and Dave: On Our Selection was produced, a remake of the 1920 silent film version, the version which was by then in the public domain. The film was presented as an honour to the centenary of Australian cinema, but the version was not especially successful.

Radio series

There was also a radio series of the work, Dad and Dave from Snake Gully, which began in 1937.