Henry Lawson

The Drover’s Wife: The legend of Molly Johnson by Leah Purcell

March 2020, no. 419

Leah Purcell has described how her lifelong fascination with Henry Lawson’s iconic 1892 short story provided her with abundant creative ammunition. Her mother read her the story when she was five; it held a special place for them both. ‘I’d say the famous last line: “Ma, I won’t never go drovin ... she’d tear up”.’

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While the Billy Boils by Henry Lawson & Biography of a Book by Paul Eggert

by Paul Brunton •

September 2013, no. 354

Paul Brunton reviews 'While the Billy Boils' by Henry Lawson and 'Biography of a Book: Henry Lawson’s 'While the Billy Boils'' by Paul Eggert

It is not often that a truly ground-breaking work appears, publishers’ hype notwithstanding. Paul Eggert has produced two such works in the one year, which must be a record. Both relate to Henry Lawson (1867–1922), arguably the most famous Australian writer of all time.

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The Penguin Book of Australian Bush Writing edited by edited by John Ross

by Susan K. Martin •

March 2012, no. 339

Susan K. Martin reviews 'The Penguin Book of Australian Bush Writing' edited by John Ross

Twinings has recently introduced a new tea flavour called ‘Australian Afternoon Tea’. On the box is an image of kangaroos silhouetted against a red rocky background, which is a sort of amalgam, or perhaps amalgum, of Uluru and Kata Tjuta. This book is like that tea – more Australian than Australia, in a packaged, labelled form that relies heavily on recognition, stereotype, and sentiment. I have to admit that when I started reading the Introduction I thought it might be a parody, but perhaps that just shows jaded sensibilities. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that as ‘Australians we carry a certain vague longing for the bush’. Perhaps I am not drinking the right tea.

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A Lawson for our times

by Brian Matthews •

May 2009, no. 311

It is exhilarating and always illuminating to return to Henry Lawson. His is a body of work – slim and fragile though it may be – with which many would confidently claim to be particularly familiar. ‘The Drover’s Wife’, ‘The Union Buries Its Dead’, ‘The Loaded Dog’ and many others are a part of our literary and cultural reference. Yet Lawson’s fiction is so deceptive, seemingly intuitive and ‘natural’, that it is easy to forget just how artful and crafted it is. This is one reason why the Mitchell sketches, for example, held together by a few strokes and much implication, are always potent reminders of how brilliantly and deftly Lawson managed his fiction, how spare, tremulous and scarcely visible are the structural props of his narrative, and how he merged his own experiences into a prose that powerfully transcends its autobiographical provenance. These are some of the reasons why the reissue of a collection like John Barnes’s influential and authoritative take on Lawson is welcome and timely. The addition of John Kinsella’s introduction to sit alongside Barnes’s original 1986 essay makes the whole enterprise even more attractive.

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Henry Lawson: A life by Colin Roderick

by Michael Sharkey •

July 1991, no. 132

Michael Sharkey reviews 'Henry Lawson: A life' by Colin Roderick

Henry Lawson’s death prompted a torrent of lamentation and, despite the distaste of academics and critics, the poet was soon enshrined as a National Treasure. Colin Roderick’s biography is a monument of dedication to the poet.

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Henry Lawson: Favourite verse edited by Nancy Keesing, illustrated by Walter Stackpool

by Clement Semmler •

June 1979, no. 11

Clement Semmler reviews 'Henry Lawson: Favourite verse' compiled by Nancy Keesing

I think it was Judith Wright who once remarked that Lawson as a poet wasn’t important; that he seems, usually to have turned to verse as a journalistic medium or as a weapon for propaganda, and that the few of his better poems were such rather because of the intensity of feeling than through any technical or poetic gift.

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