A bid for fortune, or, Dr. Nikola's Vendetta

Guy Boothby was a South Australian to the core. His grandfather was the difficult, much maligned Supreme Court Judge Benjamin Boothby, who caused a furore in the mid- nineteenth century by declaring South Australian laws and legislation were largely null and void. Guy's uncle was Sheriff of South Australia for almost 50 years, and responsible for much of the current Australian voting system.

Guy was born at his grandparents' home, 'The Glen' at Glen Osmond, and grew up among the well-to-do families of Adelaide. His widowed mother took the family to live in the U.K., where he was educated. Returning to Adelaide, he became secretary to Mayor Lewis Cohen and in 1890, with composer Cecil Sharp, produced a comic opera, Sylvia, followed by another, The Jonquille. Boothby met Rudyard Kipling during his visit to Australia in 1891, when the famous writer spent just three days in Adelaide on his way to India. The two became lifetime friends. Kipling encouraged Boothby to pursue his writing despite the many rejections he had received from publishers.

Quitting his job, Boothby travelled to Queensland and then to England. In 1894 his first book was published, On the wallaby, which described travelling with his brother from Cooktown to Adelaide. In the same year his first novel appeared, In strange company: a story of Chili and the southern seas.

This was followed in 1895 with the first Doctor Nikola book, A bid for fortune (the image shown is from the 1930 edition). In the decade before his early death, a stream of books poured from his pen. Boothby described for an interviewer how he began work at 5.30 in the morning, dictating his novels onto a phonograph recording, from which two secretaries transcribed his work. (Advertiser 1 March 1905, p. 5)

Doctor Nikola, his most popular character, was a sinister figure, an anti-hero in search of immortality and world domination. Four more Nikola novels followed the first, and all went through many re-printings. The first Dr Nikola novel remains in print, the latest edition published in 2010 in the Classic Australian series.

Boothby died of Influenza at Bournemouth, England in 1905, aged 37.