Showing results by author "Henry Lawson" in All Categories

A fascinating collection of short stories by some of Australia's best classic writers.

Henry Lawson's poignant tale of a woman bringing up her four children alone in the Australian outback. When her family is threatened by a venomous snake that has invaded their home, she (with the help of Alligator, the family's dog-of-all-breeds) must find a way to defend her children.

Henry Lawson's works, along with those of Banjo Paterson, have become an essential part of the Australian literary tradition. Henry Lawson's storytelling focuses on the bush, on droving and shearing, on the characters and resilience of life in the outback. Born in a tent on the Grenfell goldfields in 1867, Lawson could well remember the roaring days of the gold rush and the life of pioneers.

A resourceful miner devises an ingenious scheme to expedite his fishing, but it does not quite go as planned.

This collection was published in 1901 and contains some of Lawson's best known stories. Most of the stories are set in the Australian bush, and feature many of Lawson's iconic characters, like squatters, swagmen, and struggling selector farmers. A persistent theme is the harshness of rural life and the inevitability of personal tragedy.

This collection consists of eight short stories and nine poems and was first published in 1910. The opening story is an examination of a quaint legal custom in New South Wales whereby a defendant could be sentenced to a period of imprisonment that was to end when the court hearing finished.

As a vivid portrait of alienation and despair few narratives have surpassed Henry Lawson’s depiction of the grinding poverty endured by many settlers in the Australian outback. In the simple and direct language of his stoic narrator, Joe Wilson, he delivers an unforgettable depiction of a pioneering way of life, but one completely stripped of glamour or glory. Generally considered to be one of the finest Australian short stories ever written, Water Them Geraniums is read by Australian narrator, Denis Daly.

As either realist or romancer, Henry Lawson was described in his own lifetime as the "first articulate voice of the real Australia", later to become fondly known as the "bard of the bush". His death in 1922 left Australia with a wealth of literary works unequalled by any artist. In this selection of short stories, accompanied by classical music, Lawson captures the true Australian spirit of his fellow countrymen.