Guy Boothby

Guy Boothby was born into a prominent political family in Adelaide in 1867. Justice Benjamin Boothby, his uncle, had incapacitated the South Australian colonial government, holding them at an almost 10 year constitutional impasse with the Supreme Court until the Colonial Laws Validity Act was introduced in 1865 (Castles, 1969). Justice Boothby is described as ‘principled if dogmatic’, a description that many Neurodivergent people will relate to. Justice Boothby was frustrated by his lack of career progression, this is also a common experience for contemporary Autistic people (Davies et. al, 2024). It is important when considering someone’s possible neurodivergence to consider them in a family context as we now know that Autism is one of the most heritable common conditions (La Monica et. al, 2025). Whilst we can not excuse Justice Boothby’s actions, which included locking a jury up for 22 hours without food or water, through a retrospective label as possibly neurodivergent, it is likely that there was either some neurodivergence or complex mental health at play.

At the age of 7, Guy Boothby moved to England with his mother where he was educated at Salisbury, Lord Weymouth’s Grammar and Christ’s Hospital in London. At the age of 16, Boothby returned alone to South Australia where he was given a position in colonial administration as private secretary to the Mayor of Adelaide, Lewis Cohen. He was not content with his administrative role, and left to try his hand at more creative endeavours in theatre which received lukewarm responses. He contributed to The South Australian Register and penned plays and musical comedies. He acted in several of his own plays locally, but these ‘fell flat’ (the Observer, 1891) and were financially unrewarding. Many Autistic people experience volatile career trajectories, often being stuck in lacklustre positions (Davies et. al, 2024). Of those able to carve a career of their own choosing, many Autistic people enjoy careers in the performing arts (Buckley, 2021).

Boothby’s luck in this matter did not continue. In the early 1890s, the Australian colonies endured severe economic collapse and Boothby left for England. Due to a lack of funds, this journey took him two years to complete as he travelled via south east Asia and the Torres Strait picking up whatever work he could manage along the way. He details his journey in his first book, On the Wallaby, or Through the East and Across Australia published in 1894.

The Theory of Double Empathy suggests that Autistic people have their own way of using languages. Two characteristics in Boothby’s writing that might denote an Autistic style are the focus on sensory experiences; and Wittgensteinian language games in which every word may be used as a tool for play (Dekker, 1999).

Boothby often focuses on his sensory experiences leaving the reader glad not to be experiencing the same; for example:  “the inhabitants may get the benefit of decayed fish and sea breezes” and his retelling of a shipmate’s seasickness in severely cramped quarters.

Vocal stimming is common amongst Autistic people and can be used for sensory regulation, self-soothing, emotional expression and the sheer joy of it. Vocal stimming is also known to feature in other modes of communication, for example in the sign language of Deaf Autistic people (Shield, Cooley & Meier, 2017). Vocal stimming might be considered a feature of Autistic language; and Wittgensteinian word games. In Boothby’s writing, he appears to delight in alliteration such as ‘picturesquely precipitous’ (p.105) and in words that are quite fun to say but cannot be found in a dictionary like ‘loblollopy’ (p. 102).

Boothby is perhaps perplexed by, but more likely quizzically explores the literal interpretation of phrases that others would commonly take for granted, such as “it behoved us to shake the dust of Australia from off our feet.’ and though, myself, I don’t know how the act of shaking the dust from off one’s feet should be accomplished, it certainly sounded the proper course to pursue” (p.25).

He detailed the experience of continually failing at trying to wrap himself in a sarong “a deep and designing garment, expressly meant to compass the fall of man” (p.128), “six times I tried and six times I failed; then kicking the offending garment into a corner, I marshalled my feelings and expressed myself as became the situation” (pp.128-129) and wearing this new piece of clothing for the first time, “when we did get them right we were hot and cross, and our pleasure for the afternoon was completely spoilt” (p.94). Many Autistic people will relate to this passage and how a piece of clothing can ruin an afternoon.

The travelogue met with some success and was soon followed by Boothby’s first novel, In Strange Company. Boothby produced up to six novels per year, fifty-three novels in total as well as short stories and plays, writing on average 6000 words per day. Boothby worked systematically, retiring at 9pm each night and awakening in the early dawn to set to work by 5.30am with his two secretaries as he dictated his stories through a wax-cylinder phonograph. Boothby didn’t consider himself an artist, as flying through the writing of light literature came too easily to him. He stated that perhaps if he spent two years on the production of a book as his contemporaries did he might be an artist, but it would bore him to death to do so (Advertiser, 1905).

He died at the young age of 38 in England from influenza and is most well known for the Dr. Nikola series, which detailed the adventures of an occultist criminal mastermind as he searches for the key to immortality. The novel has been translated into Swedish (1908), Norwegian (1912), Danish (1915), French (1986), Spanish (2006), and Italian (2021).

Entry written by Louise Cooper.