(Includes poems unpublished since Lawson’s lifetime)
[extract from A Stranger on the
Darling]
[background to A Stranger on
the Darling]
[read what the critics said
about A Stranger on the Darling]
...or read
the back cover blurb below
‘Towards the end of ’92 I got £5 and a railway ticket from the Bulletin and went to Bourke. Painted, picked up in a shearing shed and swagged it for six months...’
The year was 1892. Henry Lawson — poet, short story writer, fervent Labor supporter — was finding it almost impossible to make a living in Sydney, and the few pounds he did earn were quickly spent in the nearby bars of Lower George Street. He was broke, alcoholic, ‘on the ropes’. Henry Lawson: A Stranger on the Darling begins when the editor of the Bulletin sent Lawson to the bush to save himself. At the time, Lawson was doing public battle with A. B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson. Their argument: who could really lay claim to being ‘the Bard of the Bush’? Paterson argued that Lawson, a city slicker, had no right to the title; this was Lawson’s chance to experience life outback. ‘You can have no idea of the horrors of the country out here. Men tramp and beg and live like dogs.’ Lawson’s time in the outback gave him a new understanding of the Australian landscape and people, and he began to write about outback life from the heart. His sojourn in Bourke, and surrounds, inspired some of Lawson’s most memorable stories and poems, peppered with characters he met ‘on the track’. Here, father and daughter team, Robyn Burrows and Alan Barton, themselves from the Bourke region, reveal the true stories behind these works. They uncover, too, eight ‘new’ poems attributed to Lawson, forgotten since that time. ‘Henry Lawson: A Stranger on the Darling is an engaging and fascinating trek with Henry Lawson on the most important Journey of his writing life.’ BRIAN MATTHEWS, author of Louisa and The Receding Wave. [back to main page] [back to "books"]
first published November 1996
Harper Collins AustraliaAvailable from all good book stores