Description

Prescribed Text for HSC 2019-2023 – Standard Module A: Language, Identity and Culture

One of the great observers of Australian life, Henry Lawson looms large in our national psyche. Yet at his best Lawson transcends the very bush, the very outback, the very up-country, the very pub or selector’s hut he conveys with such brevity and acuity: he make specific places universal.

One of the great observers of Australian life, Henry Lawson has become part of the Australian national psyche, and his short stories and verse have come to affect how Australian’s view their country. Yet at his best Lawson transcends even the very bush, the very outback, the very up-country, the very pub or selector’s hut he conveys with such brevity and acuity: he makes specific places universal.
Henry Lawson is too often regarded as a legend rather than a writer to be enjoyed. In this selection Lawson is revealed as a writer whose delightful, humorous, wry and moving short stories continue to delight generations of readers. This is the essential Lawson collection – the classic of Australian classics.
One of the great observers of Australian life, Henry Lawson has become part of the Australian national psyche, and his short stories and verse have come to affect how Australian’s view their country. Yet at his best Lawson transcends even the very bush, the very outback, the very up-country, the very pub or selector’s hut he conveys with such brevity and acuity: he makes specific places universal.

Henry Lawson is too often regarded as a legend rather than a writer to be enjoyed. In this selection Lawson is revealed as a writer whose delightful, humorous, wry and moving short stories continue to delight generations of readers. This is the essential Lawson collection – the classic of Australian classics.

About the Author

Henry Lawson (1867-1922) was born at Grenfell, New South Wales, where his father, a Norwegian sailor (originally Larsen), was unsuccessfully prospecting for gold. Partially deaf from the age of nine, Henry had little formal education, and was an apprentice in Sydney when he began to write verse and short stories. His first published work was in 1887 in The Bulletin, an influential weekly with which he was associated for the rest of his life. His reputation as a short-story writer was established with the publication of Where the Billy Boils in 1896. During the two years that he spent in England (1900-02), he enjoyed the friendship and critical support of Edward Garnett, and wrote some of his best stories. After his return to Australia his work showed a marked decline, and the rest of his life was darkened by alcoholism and the bitterness generated by the breakdown of his marriage. A national figure, identified strongly with Australian values, he died in poverty in Sydney, where he was given a state funeral.