Catherine Baker (1861–1953) was an Irish-born Australian teacher best known for championing the work of her friend Joseph Furphy, whose novel Such Is Life had received an indifferent reception upon its initial publication in 1909 but was later embraced by critics and the public. Miles Franklin incorporated Baker's recollections into the essay "Who Was Joseph Furphy?", which won the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize in 1939. Baker was appointed an OBE in 1937 for her efforts in promoting Furphy's work and to broader Australian literature. She was an influential part of the Australian literary scene, supporting, writing to and encouraging writers such as Ada Cambridge, Victor Kennedy, Edith Coleman, the poet Marie E. J. Pitt, journalist Alice Henry and the poet John Shaw Neilson. She was made a life member of the Henry Lawson Society, and honored with a bronze plaque by the society in 1936. Shortly before her death in 1953 she was made vice-president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties.
Early life and career
Baker was born on 23 April 1861 in Cappoquin, Ireland, to Catherine Baker () and Francis Wilson Baker, a heraldic painter. Her father died when Baker was only 3 months old, and the family subsequently moved to Williamstown, Victoria, in 1870 to live with Catherire's sister, who was the wife of the then mayor, Edward Crane. Baker's attended Williamstown North State school, and in 1881 she became a teacher at Hyde Street State school in Footscray, before taking charge in 1881 of a school at Wanalta Creek near Rushworth.
Meeting and correspondence with Joseph Furphy
Whilst teaching at the school, she boarded at the home of the parents of pupil Isaac Furphy, before the next year moving to board with the parents of Joseph Furphy in Burramboot East. Before leaving her lodgings to move to Melbourne, Baker was delayed for three days due to weather. Joseph Furphy, who had been working outdoors, returned home for several days, and the two met. The encounter made a lasting impression on Baker, who later recalled to reporter J. K. Ewers that Furphy "had much the same style in speaking as in writing, discursive, breaking into side issues, but ever returning to the main topic", and that "at the time of meeting him I compared him in my mind to the gentle scholar in Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. Later, knowing him more perfectly, I likened him to Leonardo da Vinci...".
After moving back to Melbourne Baker began a correspondence with him, encouraging him to write a book about his life. Furphy valued Baker's input and encouragement; biographer John Barnes described Baker as "providing the intellectual companionship [Furphy] had never known with his wife", from whom he was estranged. Baker became friends with Joseph's sister Annie, and through this relationship Baker invited Joseph to visit her, which he did around 1887. Despite the presence of Annie, the relationship between Baker and Furphy caused suspicions within his family, and Joseph's brother John effectively prevented Furphy from visiting Baker the following year.
Furphy and Baker's remained in frequent correspondence, and at some point he resumed annual visits to Melbourne to see them until the end of 1903 when he moved across the country to Swanbourne, near in Perth. Baker had been teaching at her old school in North Williamstown from 1887 to 1898, after which she continued as an infants teacher.
Publication of Such Is Life
In 1889, after much encouragement by Baker and his friend and fellow blacksmith, William Cathels, Furphy submitted his work Such Is Life to The Bulletin under the pseudonym Tom Collins. The hand-written manuscript submitted was 1,200 pages (which would have been about 550 printed pages) and, despite a positive review, literary editor A. G. Stephens determined it could not be published due to its length. An abridged version was published in 1903 to disappointing sales, but a section that had been excised enjoyed greater success serialized in the Barrier Truth between 1905 and 1907 under the title Rigby's Romance.
Furphy's standard bearer
After Furphy died in 1912, Baker had a nervous breakdown and retired from the then Victorian Department of Education. In 1913 she collected and published The Poems of Joseph Furphy via the Lothian Book Publishing Company, financing the publication from her own funds. In 1914, after half the original edition of Such Is Life was found at The Bulletin under some lumber, she purchased the remaining 800 or so unbound copies of the novel for £60 and began arranging to have it republished by The Specialty Press as a second edition.