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The Drover's Wife
Since Henry Lawson wrote his story 'The Drover's Wife' in 1892, Australian writers, painters, performers and photographers have created a wonderful tradition of drover's wife works, stories and images.
The Russell Drysdale painting from 1945 extended the mythology and it, too, has become an Australian icon.
Other versions of the Lawson story have been written by Murray Bail, Barbara Jefferis, Mandy Sayer, David Ireland, Madeleine Watts and others, up to the present, including Leah Purcell's play and Ryan O'Neill's graphic novel.
In essays and commentary, Frank Moorhouse examines our ongoing fascination with this story and has collected some of the best pieces of writing on the subject. This remarkable, gorgeous book is, he writes, 'a monument to the drovers' wives'.
The Russell Drysdale painting from 1945 extended the mythology and it, too, has become an Australian icon.
Other versions of the Lawson story have been written by Murray Bail, Barbara Jefferis, Mandy Sayer, David Ireland, Madeleine Watts and others, up to the present, including Leah Purcell's play and Ryan O'Neill's graphic novel.
In essays and commentary, Frank Moorhouse examines our ongoing fascination with this story and has collected some of the best pieces of writing on the subject. This remarkable, gorgeous book is, he writes, 'a monument to the drovers' wives'.
373 pages, Hardcover
First published October 30, 2017
About the author
Frank Moorhouse
52 books55 followersFrank Thomas Moorhouse AM (21 December 1938 – 26 June 2022) was an Australian writer. He won major Australian national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay, and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and also translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian, and Swedish.
Moorhouse was perhaps best known for winning the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Dark Palace; which together with Grand Days and Cold Light, the "Edith Trilogy" is a fictional account of the League of Nations, which trace the strange, convoluted life of a young woman who enters the world of diplomacy in the 1920s through to her involvement in the newly formed International Atomic Energy Agency after World War II.
The author of 18 books, Moorhouse became a full-time fiction writer during the 1970s, also writing essays, short stories, journalism and film, radio and TV scripts.
In his early career he developed a narrative structure which he has described as the 'discontinuous narrative'. He lived for many years in Balmain, where together with Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, he became part of the "Sydney Push" - an anti-censorship movement that protested against rightwing politics and championed freedom of speech and sexual liberation. In 1975 he played a fundamental role in the evolution of copyright law in Australia in the case University of New South Wales v Moorhouse. - Wikipedia
Moorhouse was perhaps best known for winning the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, Dark Palace; which together with Grand Days and Cold Light, the "Edith Trilogy" is a fictional account of the League of Nations, which trace the strange, convoluted life of a young woman who enters the world of diplomacy in the 1920s through to her involvement in the newly formed International Atomic Energy Agency after World War II.
The author of 18 books, Moorhouse became a full-time fiction writer during the 1970s, also writing essays, short stories, journalism and film, radio and TV scripts.
In his early career he developed a narrative structure which he has described as the 'discontinuous narrative'. He lived for many years in Balmain, where together with Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes, he became part of the "Sydney Push" - an anti-censorship movement that protested against rightwing politics and championed freedom of speech and sexual liberation. In 1975 he played a fundamental role in the evolution of copyright law in Australia in the case University of New South Wales v Moorhouse. - Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 17, 2018
I adored this book every bit of it. It set me on a new course of discovering more about Henry Lawson.
February 23, 2022
3.5, this is a really interesting read! It dives into the history of Henry Lawson, looks at several different perspectives and readings of the classic story 'The Drover's Wife' and also examines its impact on Australian literature and its place within the Australian cannon. There were several interesting essays and short stories in here - I particularly liked the queer reading of the Drover's Wife and Henry Lawson's life. Overall a worthwhile read, although some essays are quite scholarly, while some are more colloquial. But I guess that just adds to the interest of the collection.
April 11, 2018
Enjoyed the analysis of the impact the original story has had on the Aussie psyche. Really enjoyed the stories written by various authors as spin offs from the original.
June 14, 2019
I was expecting something different from this collection, and would have preferred a full selection of stories inspired by Lawson's short story. There were a few too many essays to really grab my interest. I enjoyed dipping into a few of the short stories though.
August 18, 2018
Disappointing. I'm very interested in Henry Lawson but this was too repetitive, without adding much to the study of his work. I liked Murray Bail's version of the story.
June 24, 2018
More correctly this is a book compiled by Frank Moorhouse as editor rather than as author as he has received contributions from many authors.
This is a challenging book that dissects and interprets the life of Henry Lawson, one of Australia's greatest and admired authors, through the prism of one of his short stories "The Drover's Wife".
The Drover's Wife is a short story only ten pages long. Moorhouse believes it reveals so much about the times of Henry Lawson and the attitudes of the society of those times.
He interprets, along with other authors in the compilation, attitudes of a society as it developed on the harsh continent of Australia. Big issues of aboriginal exploitation by white colonialists, domestic violence, the emotional and physical absence of the father (away attempting to make a living somewhere),male-female sexuality, gender and and expression are tackled. It ineviatble involves some revisionist interpretation of history.
The book also discusses Russell Drysdale's painting "The Drover's Wife" and passes opinion on what it is trying to say about Australian history on all of the above issues.
The book argues that Lawson's short story has inspired other writers and artists.
This is a challenging book that dissects and interprets the life of Henry Lawson, one of Australia's greatest and admired authors, through the prism of one of his short stories "The Drover's Wife".
The Drover's Wife is a short story only ten pages long. Moorhouse believes it reveals so much about the times of Henry Lawson and the attitudes of the society of those times.
He interprets, along with other authors in the compilation, attitudes of a society as it developed on the harsh continent of Australia. Big issues of aboriginal exploitation by white colonialists, domestic violence, the emotional and physical absence of the father (away attempting to make a living somewhere),male-female sexuality, gender and and expression are tackled. It ineviatble involves some revisionist interpretation of history.
The book also discusses Russell Drysdale's painting "The Drover's Wife" and passes opinion on what it is trying to say about Australian history on all of the above issues.
The book argues that Lawson's short story has inspired other writers and artists.
March 15, 2020
A short story that is an intriguing although brutal account of settler life for pioneering Australian families. The right mix of suspense, drama and tragedy brings the account together.
One cannot help but be moved reading and walking in the shoes of the character as she experiences life on the frontier in all its unpredictability and harshness.
Highly recommended as a read-aloud for primary and early secondary children as a further discussion starter on Australian history.
One cannot help but be moved reading and walking in the shoes of the character as she experiences life on the frontier in all its unpredictability and harshness.
Highly recommended as a read-aloud for primary and early secondary children as a further discussion starter on Australian history.
April 21, 2018
This book is actually a series of analyses of the original story about The Drover's Wife - which is actually only brief. The original story is interesting - the analyses not so much unless you're into literature analysis.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews