| Italic Title: | force |
| A Bride from the Bush | |
| Author: | E. W. Hornung |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Ivory Series |
| Subject: | Australia–United Kingdom relations |
| Published: | 1890 (Smith, Elder & Co.) |
A Bride from the Bush is the first novel written by E. W. Hornung.[1] He started writing the book while working as a tutor for Charles Joseph Parsons in Mossgiel Station, New South Wales, Australia.[2] The novel was initially published by Smith, Elder & Co. as a serial in the Cornhill Magazine, and then published in book format by the same company in October 1890.[3] As with Tiny Luttrell and The Unbidden Guest, two of Hornung's other early novels, A Bride from the Bush points out flaws in British society by presenting the country through an Australian perspective.[4] A reviewer from The New York Times called the novel "a most piquant contrast between civilization and crudity".[5] The writer Thomas Alexander Browne called the titular character of A Bride from the Bush "a libel to Australian womankind".[6] A Punch editor made the opposite claim, arguing that the protagonist of the novel is more kind-hearted and attractive than actual Australians.[7]
Hornung's later stories in the A. J. Raffles series achieved much more popularity than A Bride from the Bush.[8] Nonetheless, he himself liked A Bride from the Bush and his other Australian stories better than those of Raffles.[9] When he published the novel Peccavi in 1900, a critic from The Advertiser wrote a scathing review, writing that Hornung should go back to Australia so he would be inspired to write something as good as A Bride from the Bush again.[10] Upon Hornung's death, a tribute in The Freeman's Journal called A Bride from the Bush "the best and the best known" of Hornung's Australia-related stories.[11] In 1924 André Cœuroy and Theodore Baker argued in The Musical Quarterly that Hornung's characterisation of the novel's hero as being pitiable for being unable to appreciate anthems demonstrates that A Bride from the Bush is typical of other novels of the time in favouring vocal church music.[12]