Henry Lawson: The Master Story-Teller

by Colin Arthur Roderick

Book by Lawson, Henry, Brian Kiernan

Genres: Biography

961 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Eamonn Kelly]

Found this book at work, passed the time on a particularly uneventful late shift. Lawson has always appealed to me more than Banjo Patterson, the cynic in me feels comforted that at least somebody was pouring cold water on his brand of starry-eyed romanticism about the bush and the people that lived there. Maybe it's something in Australian culture, tall poppies and all that. My edition of this collection is from the 80s, and contains a lot more of his short stories than it does of his poetry. He's better in my opinion as a short story writer - some of them, The Union Buries it's Dead, The Drover's Wife, are among the best that I've ever read. Unfortunately, Lawson died relatively young after struggling with mental health and alcoholism, the biographical writing in this, espectially the essays about the state of Australian literature, are remarkably precient about the tendency of Australian culture to undervalue it's artists.

Pleasantly surprised at the unionist politics expressed in his writing. Not at all surprised and very dissapointed about the racism.

[Leanne Dole]

Easy to read short stories with great descriptions that really took you back to what life might have been like in the late 1800s early 1900s.