Henry Lawson was born on the Grenfell goldfields in New South Wales in 1867. His father was a Norwegian seaman, who separated from Lawson’s mother, a feminist activist and writer, in 1883. The family had lived on a selection near Mudgee but Lawson moved to Sydney with his mother after the separation of his parents.

Lawson never had a happy personal life. He suffered from deafness, manic depression and alcoholism. In 1896, he married Bertha Bredt and they had two children before separating in 1903. Lawson continued drinking and spent some time in prison before his death in 1922.

Henry Lawson is regarded as an important Australian writer and poet. His short stories provided the first genuine Australian insight into bush life and his characters were realistic interpretations of the Australian bush experience.

His work contrasted sharply with traditional Victorian writers and provided some sense of nationalism rather than allegiance to the British Empire. His stories were published between 1892 and 1902, a political and social turning point for Australia.

In the late nineteenth century, the works of Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson were published in The Bulletin, an influential publication which exerted nationalist and unionist views. Lawson and Paterson had different perspectives on the Australian bush, which they both wrote about.

Paterson came from a privileged background and eventually worked as a solicitor in Sydney. He presented romantic views of the bush and depicted heroes in his famous poems, including The Man from Snowy River and Waltzing Matilda. Lawson depicted lonely, monotonous, hard lives realistically. Their contributions to The Bulletin were regarded as ‘The Bulletin debate’.

The summary notes for Short Stories by Henry Lawson cover the following key aspects from the text in detail:

• Genre
• Structure
• Historical Issues
• Style
• Background Notes
• Summary
• Character Profiles
• Themes and Issues
• Sample Examination Questions
• Final Examination Tips

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