Seven Little Australians is a classic Australian children's literature novel by Ethel Turner, published in 1894. Set mainly in Sydney in the 1880s, it relates the adventures of the seven mischievous Woolcot children, their stern army father Captain Woolcot, and faithful young stepmother Esther.
Turner wrote the novel in 1893 while living at Inglewood in what was then rural Lindfield (now Woodlands, Killara, New South Wales), having moved there from the inner city suburb of Paddington in 1891. The suburban bushland surroundings quickly became important in Turner's stories. On her 21st birthday, Ethel wrote in her diary, 'Seven L. Aust. – sketched it out.' (24 January 1893) In 1994 the novel was the only book by an Australian author to have been continuously in print for 100 years. The book's original handwritten manuscript is held by the State Library of NSW. The full text of the manuscript has been digitized and can be viewed on the Library's website. The original title of the novel, as written by Turner, was 'Seven Pickles'.
It has been extensively adapted for other media, including as a film, two different television mini-series, various stage plays and a stage musical.
Characters
The book's protagonists are the seven Woolcot children, from oldest to youngest: Meg (real name Margaret), 16: naive, romantic, eldest (but immature) sister and sometime surrogate mother to the younger children. Pip (real name Philip), 14: eldest brother, handsome, intelligent but badly-behaved. Judy (real name Helen), 13: imaginative and lively, Pip's partner-in-crime, often leads the others into mischief. Nell (real name Elinor), 10: beautiful, slightly wistful child. Bunty (real name John), 6: described as 'fat and very lazy'. Bunty can be selfish and annoying but loves his family. Baby (real name Winifred), 4: the most well-behaved of the lot, was only a baby when her mother died. 'The General' (real name Francis Rupert Burnand), the baby; only natural child of Esther, who is stepmother to the other children.
Plot summary
The seven children of the title live in 1880s Sydney with their father, an army Captain who has little understanding of his children, and their 20-year-old stepmother Esther, who can exert little discipline on them. Accordingly, they wreak havoc wherever possible, for example by interrupting their parents while they entertain guests and asking for some of their dinner (implying to the guests that the children's own dinner is inadequate).
After a prank by Judy and Pip embarrasses Captain Woolcot at his military barracks, he orders that ringleader Judy be sent away to boarding school in the Blue Mountains.
Meg comes under the influence of an older girl, Aldith, and tries to improve her appearance according to the fashions of the day. She and Aldith make the acquaintance of two young men, but Meg believes she has fallen in love with the older brother of one, Alan. When Aldith and Meg arrange to meet the young men for a walk, Meg is embarrassed after a note goes astray and Alan comes to the meeting instead and reproaches her for becoming 'spoilt', rather than remaining the sweet young girl she was. Meg returns home and later faints, having tight-laced her waist under pressure from Aldith until it affects her health.
Unhappy at being away from her siblings, Judy runs away from school, returns home, and hides in the barn. Despite her ill-health as a result of walking for a week to get home, the other children conceal her presence from their father, but that presence is disclosed after he cruelly whips one of them. He plans to send her back to school, but softens in fear when he sees her coughing up blood. When the doctor reports she has pneumonia and is at risk of tuberculosis, she is allowed to remain at home.
To assist Judy's recuperation, Esther's parents invite her and the children to their sheep station Yarrahappini. One day the children go on a picnic far away from the property's main house. A ringbarked tree falls and threatens to crush 'the General', the youngest sibling and Esther's own child. Judy, who promised 'on her life' not to allow him to be harmed on the picnic, rushes to catch him and her body protects him from the tree. However her back is broken and she dies before help can be fetched.
After burying Judy on the property, the family returns home to Sydney sobered by her death. While ostensibly things remain the same, each character is slightly changed by their experience. In particular Captain Woolcot regrets the fact that he never really understood Judy. His remaining children are now 'dearer to his heart', though he shows it very little more than before.