''Human Toll'' (1907) is a novel by Australian writer
Barbara Baynton
Barbara Janet Baynton (née Lawrence; 4 June 1857 – 28 May 1929) was an Australian writer known primarily for her short stories about life in the bush. She published the collection '' Bush Studies'' (1902) and the novel ''Human Toll'' (1907), ...
.
Dedication
"Dedication: To Boshy's Lovey and mine."
Synopsis
The novel follows a young bush girl, Ursula Ewart, after she is orphaned and removed from the station where she grew up, and from Boshy, the station hand. She is brought up in town by Mrs Irvine and later re-unites with Boshy as she nurses him through his final illness. She eventually returns to her home on the station. She is appalled by the treatment of a child by one of the women there and flees into the bush with it.
Critical reception
Edward Garnett, writing for the ''Bookman'' and then reprinted in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' noted: "The terrible earthiness of human instinct, the underlying egoism of our desires, the determining force of a mean environment, the gauntness and squalidness of decivilised Australian life, are portrayed remorselessly in the figures of half a dozen characters...There is nothing in recent English fiction that is so psychologically remarkable as this book. It is an unequal performance, fragmentary and uncertain in some of its effects, perhaps a little too nebulous and confused here, and a little too overstrained there. But it is a work of genius indisputably, disconcertingly sinister, extraordinarily actual."
In the Melbourne ''
Herald
A herald, or a herald of arms, is an officer of arms, ranking between pursuivant and king of arms. The title is commonly applied more broadly to all officers of arms.
Heralds were originally messengers sent by monarchs or noblemen to ...
'' a reviewer was taken by the sense of realism in the work: "...the truthfulness of the writer is undeniable, and there be many in Australia who can bear witness to it. After all, too, the squalor and misery which, in these places, would seem to be regarded as mere matters of daily life, is more than equalled in some parts of Merrle England, and the 'toll' of human misery exacted for an existence is often greater than is described even in this terribly realistic work. There is certainly no romance about it. It is almost horrible in some of its realism, but it is none the less attractive..."
Publication history
After its original publication in 1907 in England by publishers
Duckworth Books
Duckworth Books, originally Gerald Duckworth and Company, founded in 1898 by Gerald Duckworth, is a British publisher. the novel was not re-published until:
* ''Barbara Baynton'' edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson
University of Queensland Press
Established in 1948, University of Queensland Press (UQP) is an Australian publishing house.
Founded as a traditional university press, UQP has since branched into publishing books for general readers in the areas of fiction, non-fiction, poetr ...
, Australia, 1980 (note: this was a collection of Baynton's works.
* University of Sydney Library, Scholarly Electronic Text and Image Service (SETIS), 2000