Essays

By Henry Lawson

Australia's romantic self-image meets a blunt challenge in essays that ask who pays the price for nationhood, progress and imperial loyalty. Written in forceful colloquial English, the arguments move between republicanism, federation, immigration and labour rights, testing public ideals against social class and material conditions. Irony and satire sharpen the political commentary, while autobiographical testimony keeps its claims grounded in observed experience rather than abstraction. Sydney provides the collection's single named setting, where unsafe housing and overcrowding expose the human consequences of urban poverty. Beyond the city, the bush is stripped of comforting mythology: drought, unemployment, isolation and rural hardship replace picturesque visions of pastoral life. Trade unionism and irrigation enter the discussion not as detached policy questions, but as parts of a wider conflict between independence and inherited colonial assumptions, and between modern realities and the stories a country tells about itself. Later reflections turn towards memory, mining country, the coast and an irrigation district, broadening the work from public argument into memoir, travel writing and descriptive sketches. Across these shifts in form, the same questioning voice persists-rhetorical, ironic and resistant to easy sentiment. The collection brings Australian social criticism into direct contact with lived places and working lives, revealing how national identity is debated through housing, labour, land and belonging. This book was out of print for decades and is now republished by Alpha Editions. It has been restored for today's and future generations. This edition is not just a reprint - it's a collector's item and a cultural treasure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9378410529
• ISBN13: 9789378410529
• Release Date: January 2027
• Publisher: Alpha Edition
• Length: 74 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"