Who was Ethel Turner?
Ethel Turner was an English-born Australian author, best known for Seven Little Australians, published in 1894. The novel about the mischievous Woolcot children of Sydney became a classic of Australian children's literature.
Born in England in 1870, Turner moved to Sydney with her mother and sisters as a child. She and her sister Lilian started a magazine for young readers while still teenagers.
Seven Little Australians follows the seven Woolcot children, who live with their strict army officer father and young stepmother on the Parramatta River. The story combines humour with a famous tragic ending involving Judy, the spirited third child.
A new kind of story
The book was praised for showing Australian children as they really were, cheeky and imperfect, rather than the perfectly behaved children of many English stories of the time.
Turner wrote more than 40 books, including sequels such as The Family at Misrule. She also edited children's pages in newspapers.
Seven Little Australians has been reprinted many times and was adapted into a 1973 ABC television series, introducing the Woolcot family to a new generation.
Did You Know?
The Ethel Turner Prize for young people's literature is part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.