AustLit

A collection of poems, stories, articles, and translations published by Rowe in the press (particularly The Month and the Sydney Morning Herald). 'Peter Possum' was Rowe's main pen name.

Epigraph: What Peter did on this occasion Was writing some sad stuff in prose. Shelley.

No poet is our honest Peter, But likes to jingle words in metre. Anon.

Dedication: To Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse, Esq., M. A., Etc., Etc., Etc., The faithful friend of the unfortunate, who visited me when I was a stranger, sick, and in prison, and whose kindness never since has failed, I dedicate this little book: As a sincere , although sorry, token of my grateful affection, Coupled with the warmest admiration of his mental gifts and scholarly attainments. P. 'P.

E. Morris Miller's Australian Literature from its Beginnings to 1935 (1940): 28-29 comments: 'Peter 'Possum's Portfolio contained articles of Australian origin as well as reprints of prose and verse which Rowe had previously contributed to various English periodicals. The opening piece is a short novel, 'Arthur Owen, an Autobiography', which ran through The Month. Then follow a few essays, reviews, and original poems. One-fourth of the book comprises translations in verse from the classics. The publication caused a stir in Sydney when it appeared; its interest to-day is mainly historical and antiquarian. D. H. Deniehy (q.v.) wrote a laudatory review of it and accredited the author with genius. Of 'Arthur Owen', he commented, 'A degree of passion and imaginative power, a pathos and altogether exquisite delicacy of feeling, a perception of, a faculty for, reproducing rural beauty in artistic forms, is shewn in this remarkable story.' How values change! The translations certainly do Rowe credit, and his verse, though small in amount, is not without merit. He has an ear for melody, somewhat plaintive in tone, and a couple of his short lyrics have not been overlooked by anthologists. In his Southern Lights and Shadows, 1859, p. 111, Frank Fowler (q.v.) says: 'To write a book on Australia and forget the literature of the country would be rather anomalous.' And yet the only Australian writer, other than Deniehy, whom he mentions is Rowe! And he quotes him over eight pages!'

Miller (236) records that the work was 'Reviewed in Frank Fowler's Southern Lights, 1859; Barton's Poets and Prose Writers of N.S.W., 1866; and by Deniehy in Martin's Life and Speeches of D. H. Deniehy, 1884.'

Contents indexed selectively.