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'‘If you know Bourke, you know Australia’, Henry Lawson wrote to Edward Garnett in February 1902, a few months before returning to Australia from England. He explained to Garnett that his new collection of stories, which he hen called ‘The Heart of Australia’, was ‘centred at Bourke and all the Union leaders are in it'. (When published later that year it was entitled Children of he Bush – a title probably chosen by the London publisher.) A decade after e had been there, Lawson was revisiting in memory a place that had had a profound influence on him. It is no exaggeration to say that his one and only stay in what he and other Australians called the ‘Out Back’ was crucial to his envelopment as a prose writer. Without the months that he spent in the northest of New South Wales, it is unlikely that he would ever have achieved the legendary status that he did as an interpreter of ‘the real Australia’.' (Introduction)
Notes
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Author's note: This article is the result of a visit to Bourke in September 2014 with John Thorn, whose musical program of Lawson poems was part of the Festival of a Thousand Stories that year. I wish to thank the organisers for their hospitality and the opportunity to go on the Poet’s Trek from Bourke to Hungerford, with special thanks to Paul Roe for his insights.
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Last amended 10 Apr 2017 12:56:38
Subjects:
- Children of the Bush 1902 selected work short story poetry prose
- Henry Lawson : A Stranger on the Darling 1996 single work criticism biography
- Henry Lawson 1931 single work biography
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