GOULD, Nathaniel (1857-1919)

always known as Nat Gould

novelist

was born at Manchester on 21 December 1857. His father was a merchant in the tea trade, and the boy, the only remaining child, was indulgently brought up and well-educated. His father died just before he was to have left school, and Gould tried first his father's business and then farming at Bradbourne. He became a good horseman but a poor farmer. In 1877, in reply to an advertisement, he was given a position on the Newark Advertiser and obtained on it a good all-round knowledge of press work. After a few years he became restless, and in 1884 sailed for Australia, where he became a reporter on the Brisbane Telegraph. In 1886 he went to Sydney and worked on the Referee, Sunday Times, and Evening News. Then followed 18 months at Bathurst as editor of the Bathurst Times during which he wrote his first novel, With the Tide, which appeared as a serial in the Referee. This was followed by six other novels in the same paper. In 1891 his first novel, With the Tide, was published in book-form in England under the title of The Double Event and was an immediate success. It was dramatized in Australia and had a long run in 1893. In 1895 Gould returned to England. He had been 11 years in Australia and he felt that his experiences had made a man of him.

Back in England Gould began steadily writing fiction and for many years wrote an average of over four novels a year; about 130 are listed in Miller's Australian Literature. He also published in 1895 On and Off the Turf in Australia, in 1896 Town and Bush, Stray Notes on Australia; in 1900 Sporting Sketches; and in 1909 The Magic of Sport, mainly autobiographical. His novels attracted an enormous public and his sales ran into many millions of copies. He travelled, retained his interest in racing to the end, and died on 25 July 1919. He married in Brisbane, Miss E. M. Ruska, and there were five children of the marriage.

Nat Gould was a modest man who did not take himself or his work too seriously. But within its limits his work was very good. He told a simple story exceedingly well in an unaffected way. Nearly all the books were concerned with racing, and no great originality of plot was to be expected, but they, were written with such verve and genuine interest, that their countless readers took up each book as it was published, confident in their belief that here was another rattling good story.

The Times, 26 July 1919; Nat Gould, The Magic of Sport; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature.