Henry Lawson (1867–1922)

A collection of fifty or so stories of the Australian outback, ranging from sketches of less than a thousand words to a set of linked long stories that make up something very like a novel.

Lawson's aim seems to have been to give his readers the most realistic possible picture of the life of farmers, miners, shearers, drovers and itinerant swagmen in the late 19th century. He was criticised in his own times for stressing the squalor and hardship they faced at the expense of the "romance of show more the outback" so dear to city-dwellers and non-Australian readers, as celebrated in the works of contemporaries like Banjo Patterson. However, for modern readers, Lawson's often grim realism is likely to be much more interesting than tales of jolly swagmen and billabongs.

Lawson is, obviously, constrained in what he can do by the times he is writing in and the expectations of readers of the sort of popular papers he was writing for. The swearwords that (even today) form such an important part of the language of working-class Australians have to be replaced by crimson blanking euphemisms, which give the text an incongruous flavour of Edwardian archness. References to sex and religion have to be rather indirect and allusive. However, there's at least one very striking double-entendre in the text that would never have got past a modern censor, but was obviously judged obscure enough not to be spotted by pure-minded readers in the nineties.

Alcohol is one subject that Lawson doesn't have any qualms about discussing openly and directly. We get all the gory details of the temptation to drink in the outback, and of the damage it can do to people's lives.

Lawson reflects the working-class views of the times in his political comments and in his racist attitudes (immigrants from the British Isles are OK provided that they are prepared to adopt Australian values; other Europeans are considered comical but tolerated as long as they work hard; Asians and "blacks" are despised). But these are views he wears very openly: you don't have to share them to enjoy the stories.

Something I found very interesting is the way he uses the stories to tell us about the importance of stories in the diverse, widely-scattered communities of the outback. We are often shown people exchanging stories as they sit around campfires or in shanty-bars. Stories are represented as a way of passing news around and giving "moral examples" to reinforce the local codes of behaviour. This is remarkably similar to what Thesiger says about the Bedu of southern Arabia - it probably applies to scattered communities everywhere. But you can't help wondering how easy it was for a deaf writer like Lawson to connect with an oral tradition as effectively as he did. Maybe the shearers and swagmen all talked very loudly...? show less

Even for a non-Australian, these four poems railing against the moneyed, non-working class and against English sovereignty over Australia are pretty powerful. Lawson's language is memorable, and his indignation is even better. This is a short read, available on Gutenberg Australia. Don't miss it.

A collection of poetry and short prose by Henry Lawson, a famous Australian writer from the late 19th and early 20th century era.
Lawson had a hard life, and damaged himself with alcohol, and both attributes shine through in his writing. There is much darkness, and precious little light. But he has left a compelling record of the tough life faced by early settlers in rural areas.

Only a bit of this quotes Lawson, but the whole thing shows how much of a hero he was to Australian Labor a little over 20 years after his death. And--Australia or America--maybe things haven't changed so much. Here are some of Lawson's words quoted:

I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure
Were all their windows level with the faces of the poor?
Ah! Mammon’s slaves, your knees shall knock, your hearts in terror beat,
When God demands a reason for the sorrows of the street;
The wrong show more things and the bad things
And the sad things that we meet
In the filthy lane and alley, and the cruel, heartless street. show less