Biography of a Book: Henry Lawson's While the Billy Boils
(Hardback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
Biography of a Book: Henry Lawson's While the Billy Boils
By (Author) Paul Eggert
Sydney University Press
Sydney University Press
12th January 2012
Australia
Classifications
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900
a820.00
Physical Properties
Hardback
428
Description
Biography of a Book traces the life of an iconic Australian literary work in the lead-up to, and for a century after, its initial publication: Henry Lawson's 1896 collection While the Billy Boils. Paul Eggert follows Lawson's gradual development of a pared-back bush realism in the early 1890s, as he struggled to forge a career, writing short stories and sketches for the newspapers. Lawson's famous collection came out at a decisive moment for the development of a fully professional Australian literary publishing industry, then in its infancy in Sydney. The volume's editing, design and production were collaborative events that changed the feel and nature of Lawson's writing. He had to give ground on his texts and their sequencing. The collection went on to be reprinted and repackaged countless times. Its production and reception histories act like a geological cross-section, revealing the contours of successive cultural formations in Australia. In unravelling the life of Lawson's classic work Eggert's book-historical approach challenges and clarifies established understandings of crucial moments in Australian literary history and of Lawson himself.
