AustLit

Harry H. Pearce worked as a gold miner and farm labourer and lived in New Zealand for fourteen years before settling in Victoria. He was the Secretary and Treasurer of the Australian Poetry Lovers' Society (APLS) from the 1950s to 1973, when it was incorporated into the Henry Lawson Memorial and Literary Society in which he was also involved. Pearce was also editor of the APLS's newsletter, The Australian Poetry Lover, from 1955 to 1973, in which a number of his poems were published, and a member of the Melbourne Bread and Cheese Club. (The APLS's newsletter has not been indexed in AustLit.)

Pearce's History of the Society (1973) provides a good overview of the activities of the APLS and some useful biographical information on some of the members. He was an anti-religion rationalist and a traditionalist in his views of poetry and its roots in folk culture, and was active in the Folklore Society of Victoria. He published a controversial book, Back to the Bible, and what? : The Failure of Christian Morality (1945), as well as literary criticism.