Henry Lawson (1867- 1922) is synonymous with Australian literature. He was writing fiction and poetry that has been essential in defining the Australian national character at the exact time that Australia itself was becoming a reality. Lawson’s literary peak was the turbulent and crucial period linking the 19th to the 20th century when what had been colonies of the British Empire moved to establish complete independence and found a brand new nation. When Australia celebrated its official independence on January 1, 1901, Henry Lawson was already the literary father of his country.
When he died in 1922, Lawson was given an honor unprecedented for an Australian writer: a state funeral. More than forty years later his reputation was still strong enough to warrant his visage being minted on Australian currency. While Lawson’s poetry is an integral part of this long-lasting admiration, it was through his short stories that he really came to define what so many in the rest of the world consider the prototypical Aussie and what so many of his countrymen consider the most admirable accounts of life during the crucible in which they burned away allegiance to the Empire and established an identity beyond being the outcasts and outlaws unwanted by proper civilization.
Lawson’s first published short story, “His Father’s Mate,” arrived in 1880. At the time he was mainly writing poetry while producing journalism accounts befitting the radical politics he shared with the newspaper employing him: Boomerang. Lawson would initially stake out a claim to fame with poetry that often indulged his liberal political ideology; his verse was the song the union man fighting for equal rights and fair wages. His first published book, 1894’s Short Stories in Prose and Verse, reflects this versatility. It was a versatility that would continue through his career as he published a book of verse for just about every book of short stories.
Nevertheless, it was those short stories about the loneliness, isolation, hard work, tall tales, eccentric people, close friendships and quiet moments that spoke volumes about those people living in the Australian bush which came to define Lawson as much as Lawson came to define Australia. This was more than partly due to design. Lawson set out to create characters in settings that were distinctly Australian as a conscious effort at helping to create a national literature for the burgeoning nation which had for so long labored under British imperialism in its literary taste as well. Lawson’s short stories are peppered with Australian slang that not only served this intent at the time, but today still enjoys a legacy that making them uniquely Australian.
Among the most notable of Lawson’s short stories are “The Drover’s Wife,” “The Union Buries its Dead,” “The Loaded Dog,” and “On the Edge of a Plain.” The latter is often considered the supreme example of a type of short story in which Lawson excelled as an undisputed master, the “sketch story.” In just a little over 500 words, “On the Edge of a Plain” tells a seemingly simple story that is deceptively rich in interpretative possibilities.
Although immensely popular, critical appreciation Lawson’s mastery of technique has often been subjugated to his more obvious talent as a storyteller. (He is often compared to American writers from Bret Hart to Ambrose Bierce and even on occasion Mark Twain). Any writer capable of producing a story that routinely requires twice as many words to describe its brilliance as the writer used to tell it—like “On the Edge of a Plain”—should be all the evidence necessary to prove mastery of technique.
