Audiobook · read by volunteers
Bunyip Land
George Manville Fenn (1831–1909)
Read by Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Katie Gibboney, RK Wilcox, Sibella Denton, Mick, The Penang Lawyer, Tim Makarios, Rose · 42 chapters · 11 h 32
About the book
Joe Carstairs lives on a farm in Australia, and he has grown up under the shadow of a mystery: years ago his father, a passionate naturalist, sailed for New Guinea in search of rare specimens and was never heard of again. Now Joe is old enough to do something about it. With a local doctor and a farm hand for company, he sets out to find the missing man, and soon discovers that a stowaway, a squatter’s son named Jimmy, and his dog Gyp have come along for the journey. What follows is a classic boys’ adventure: ships and schooners, strange creatures, hired porters, narrow escapes and tense moments in country where no one can be sure of the way. Told with brisk good humour, it is a story for anyone who still enjoys a voyage into the unknown. It is a long tale, ideal for a series of evenings.
Introduction
George Manville Fenn (1831–1909) was an English writer who turned out a great many adventure stories for young readers in the second half of the nineteenth century. Bunyip Land, published in 1885, belongs to that tradition of tales in which youthful heroes cross oceans and wild country, meet danger with cheerfulness and learn something about themselves on the way. The title borrows the bunyip, a creature from Australian Aboriginal tradition that European settlers often mentioned in their stories of the bush.
The narrator tells the story in the first person, and the chapter titles, nearly all beginning with the word How, give the book a chatty, storytelling air: How I Made My Plans, How We Prepared to Start, How We Chased That Schooner. Expect a steady supply of incident rather than psychological depth, together with the period attitudes and vocabulary of a Victorian adventure. As a window onto what boys were reading in 1885, and as plain entertainment, it still has plenty to offer.
Beyond the thrills, the story rests on companionship: a boy, a doctor, a farm hand, a stowaway and a dog, all pulling together on a long and risky errand. Young listeners will enjoy the sea voyage and the strange sights of the journey, while adults may like spotting the habits of the Victorian adventure story.
The complete reading runs to about 11.5 hours in 42 recordings, one for each chapter, so it is easy to follow a chapter or two at a time. The volunteer readers keep up the breezy first-person voice, and anyone who wants a long, undemanding adventure for a journey or a run of evenings will find this one well stocked with incident.
Public domain
George Manville Fenn died in 1909: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text