Best Stories of Henry Lawson

by Henry Lawson

"The Drover's Wife", "The Loaded Dog", "The Union Buries Its Dead", "Send Round the Hat", "A Daughter of Maoriland"—here are thirty-five of Henry Lawson's finest short stories. Comic or tragic, macabre or humane, always the very essence of the legendary Australia of his period, they represent, as Cecil Mann says in his preface, "Australia's most noted short story writer at his excellent best".

Gathered from a wide range of Lawson's books—including While the Billy Boils, On the Track, Joe Wilson, The Rising of the Court, and By the Banks of the Murrumbidgee—the collection is a distillation of the best of the monumental three-volume Stories of Henry Lawson, published by Angus & Robertson in 1964.

Cecil Mann, who has selected Best Stories of Henry Lawson from the three-volume collection, is himself a distinguished short story writer and was for many years associated with the Bulletin, the journal in which so many of Lawson's stories were first published.

Genres: Classics

273 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's "greatest writer".[1] He was the son of the poet, publisher and feminist Louisa Lawson.
For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_La... .

Reviews

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Îmi amintesc ca prin vis de o casă ca o colibă; ai mei spuneau că era un cort bine construit – căci tata era dulgher; dar mama zicea că partea din faţă era o cameră căptuşită cu pânză groasă, dublată cu ziare, cu podeaua văruită şi acoperită cu rogojini, cu o vatră lângă uşă şi cu o uşă cu geam! – relicvă a peregrinării, presupun. Cortul era acelaşi în care mă născusem eu, cu vreo trei ani în urmă, în regiunea auriferă Grenfell şi care acum fusese adus înapoi la Pipeclay.
În faţa cortului – sau a colibei – era un copac, un eucalipt, cred, de care îmi amintesc că avea trunchiul foarte ramificat. Pe locul dintre copac şi colibă, fusese pe vremuri, în zilele înfloritoare ale Pipeclay-ului, o mare cârciumă, una dintre cele şapte ale râpei. Mai rămăseseră câteva gropi pe locurile unde fuseseră stâlpii, şi adesea cădeam în ele, până când tata le-a astupat. Pipeclay secătuise încă înainte ca familia mea să fi sosit la Grenfell, în goana după aur. Pipeclay era o creastă de munte pietroasă şi aridă, cu două mici râpe pline de gropi, făcute de săpători, o câmpie cafenie nu prea întinsă, câteva colibe prăvălite, una sau două vechi ferme la margine, arbuşti piperniciţi de-o culoare albastră-cenuşie, scaieţi ţepoşi, roci silicoase, buruieni înalte şi firave, câteva capre, şi o totală tristeţe şi dezolare. Dar munţii, în depărtare, erau totuşi albaştri… Se spune că aveam accese de râs, când mă rostogoleam afară din colibă, sau prin cameră, sau pe lângă casă, până oboseam şi atunci adormeam. Dar aceasta se întâmpla înainte de a-mi da seama de Lume.

[Andrew Fisher · Rating 1 out of 5]

♫"Our poet Henry Lawson, he named them, 'the lay'em out brigade'"♫
"Shakes and Movers" by Midnight Oil (Blue Sky Mining 1990)

Since hearing that song I'd been curious about Henry Lawson and how his poetry might compare with Midnight Oil's music. I'm not a great reader of poetry, when I saw this book of his short stories I thought it might be a better introduction to Henry Lawson, though I think I had read that one poem through, "The Lay-'Em-Out Brigade", it's to do with workers being shot by soldiers for striking and many of these short stories concern workers and unions. I always assumed that "Shakers and Movers" was another conservation song, from the chorus and from the overall musical atmosphere. I think Lawson's stories are more concerned with people than with nature and environment and certainly lacking the sensitivity of songwriters like Jim Moginie, Rob Hirst and Peter Garrett. So Lawson may have been more intelligent and sensitive than many of his late 1800s-early 1900s Aussie peers, but still a bit of an Aussie bloke writing stories for Aussie blokes, and Kiwi blokes I guess, some of the stories are set in New Zealand. "A Daughter of Maoriland" is pretty offensive and judgemental towards Maori, but the worst is left till the end, the story "Ah Soon" where Lawson lays bare his hatred of the Chinese and his being "all for a White Australia". At this point I was inclined to forget the parts of his stories that I'd actually enjoyed.

[Rupert Grech · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a very mixed review; while some stories were quite ordinary, others were excellent, and I enjoyed them immensely, like “The Drover’s Wife,” “Send Round the Hat,” “Ah Soon,” and “A Double Buggy at Lahey’s Creek." They provide a very believable insight into 19th-century Australian bush culture, reminiscent of Mark Twain’s portrayal of American rural culture during the same period.

[Averil *rat emoji* · Rating 5 out of 5]

So funny and chaotic, I love the true blue feel of these stories. They have movement and wit. Makes you laugh, then think. The men are dopey, the woman are tough.

[Margaret Showler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reinfored my Australian country heritage from the story-tellers viewpoint of hard work and adverse living conditions.