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' When Henry Lawson died in 1922, he was publicly honoured as a "national writer," but for the last twenty years of his life he had been a "derelict artist," caught in a cycle of poverty, alcoholism and depression, humiliated, frustrated, often ashamed of the work that he was producing and haunted by the sense of the writer that he might have been. Almost a century later, there is no biography that adequately portrays the man and the circumstances that contributed to his collapse. Underlying this article, which considers aspects of his struggle to realize his literary ambitions, is the assumption that because Lawson's work has such a strong autobiographical element, the way in which his life is read inevitably colours how his writing is read. Until there is a biography in which the tragic dimension of his life is fully recognized, our understanding of Lawson's literary achievement remains incomplete.' (Publication abstract)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- Children of the Bush 1902 selected work short story poetry prose
- Henry Lawson : Autobiographical and Other Writings 1877-1922 1972 selected work prose short story autobiography correspondence
- Henry Lawson : Collected Verse : Vol.I 1885-1900 1967 selected work poetry
- Henry Lawson : Letters : 1890-1922 1970 selected work correspondence