The Boy in the Bush (Crosscurrents/Modern Fiction) [Hardcover]

D. H. Lawrence (Author), M. L. Skinner (Author), Professor Harry T. Moore (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1971 | Series: Crosscurrents/Modern Fiction

Unique among D. H. Lawrence’s writings, The Boy in the Bush, pub­lished in 1924, is the novel he wrote in collaboration with Mollie Skinner, a native of Western Australia, who provided the background that Law­rence’s vivid and matchless prose transformed into an exciting story of adventure and romance on the Australian frontier of the 1880s. The present edition is a reprint of the Secker 1924 London edition. In his Note on the Text Matthew J. Bruccoli discusses and gives the reasons for the selection of this text, and in his Preface Harry T. Moore places the novel in per­spective in the Lawrence canon.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Lawrence's rewriting of a tale by the part-time author Mollie Skinner, converted her production into an ambitious, powerful novel. A study of all the extant textual documents has revealed a process of composition and revision which qualifies the novel to be treated unequivocally as part of the Lawrence canon. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Harry T. Moore is Re­search Professor of English at Southern Illinois University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (December 1, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809304562
• ISBN-13: 978-0809304561
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,656,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A minor work, not really worth reading..., January 23, 2004

By 

Yes (Yes) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Boy in the Bush: Cambridge Lawrence Edition (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

"The Boy in the Bush"

In this book - first published in 1924 - D.H. Lawrence recasts a manuscript which was originally written by one Mollie Skinner, a woman he met when he was travelling in Australia.

Theme: Jack Hector Grant, aged 17, has been been kicked out of his agricultural college in England, as the book opens. His mother was a native Australian, his father is in the army, both prefer travelling the world rather than living a life in England, so Jack has seen little of his parents during his boyhood, having been left in the charge of others. Jack is sent from Bedford, England, to live in Australia for a while. As the book opens, he arrives at the sea port of Fremantle, Western Australia in 1882, having travelled there on board a wool ship, to take up residency, and is placed with a family already settled there there. Thus begins his new life in Australia.
The book traces his journey from the age of 17 into maturity - his relationship with a family he lives with initially; his loves; his battles; his work and where it takes him; his relationship to the world in general, and to women in particular; and shows how he gradually changes and evolves as a person and becomes wilder, and one with the land, after being exposed for a long time to the hardships of the rougher and more solitary side of life in a young Australia.

This isn't a book I would recommend anyone to read. It is not the best of literature one could find. The book is too slow and laboured and long-winded (391 pages); the language is protracted, deliberately drawn out too long, and often repetitive; the ideas wander unnecessarily, on and on; the story itself is not particularly unusual or sufficiently interesting to amount to a reason to read the book; the account is overall too long; there is no actual climax, but simply a historical account following the progression of the youth through to the man; and there isn't enough to be gained from the book to make the long journey through it worthwhile. (But do read it if you want to, these are only my views.)

Two and a half stars.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Lawrence, January 10, 2009

By 

Uncle Borges (Via Lungomare 6) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Boy in the Bush: Cambridge Lawrence Edition (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

I had slight apprehension as to this novel being completely part of the Lawrence canon or not. True, it is not among the greatest Lawrence novels, such as "Women in Love", "Sons and lovers" or "The Plumed Serpent", nonetheless greatly enjoyable yarn about the West Australian outback in the late colonial era, and, best of all, completely and unmistakably -Lawrence.
True enough the novel drags now and again, and it is gauche in its Victorian framework, but there's no one like Lawrence to bring the understanding of the deeper currents of life. So, definitely worth your time. Even a sentence, a single thought of his, can make for an outstanding achievement (even if 90 previous pages were a bit of a drag!):

"Perhaps death, after a life of real courage, is like a happy camping expedition in the unknown, before a new start."

4 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Minor Work, May 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Boy in the Bush (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Boy in the Bush is a minor work being a collaboration between Lawrence & Mollie Skinner. It is still a interesting read containing "Laurentian" ideas more fully worked out in his other novels.