AustLit

'In this collection of more than thirty pieces of fiction, journalism, criticism, academic papers, and ephemera (acceptance speeches, parliamentary questions, university course outlines), Frank Moorhouse gives evidence of, and attempts to explain, the durability of Henry Lawson’s classic short story ‘The Drover’s Wife’ in Australian cultural life. Moorhouse’s interest encompasses not only the persistence of Lawson’s story, but also the many ways in which it has lingered by being constantly reinvented – both reverently and otherwise – to the point where he declares that it has become ‘a phenomenon unique in the Australian artistic imagination’.' (Introduction)