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Business card, ‘Harry Lawson, Bulletin’c 1890

Lawson moved to Sydney with his mother after his parents’ marriage ended in 1883. It was at his mother’s urging that he began seriously to write poetry and short stories. In October 1887 his first published verse, ‘Songs of the Republic’, was printed in the Bulletin magazine, and others soon followed. Henry gained further writing and editorial experience when Louisa bought the Republican magazine, and by 1894 she was able to publish his first book, Short Stories in Prose and Verse.

JF Archibald, owner of the Bulletin, became an important figure in young Henry’s life, his tactful editing helping to shape the easy prose style of the author’s best stories. In September 1892 he sent Lawson to drought- stricken Bourke, in the state’s far north-west, where he worked in a shearing shed and slept in a swag for six months, reporting on the lives of bushmen and country workers. Profoundly moved by the harshness of rural life and the resilience of outback people, he returned to Sydney in mid-1893 with a store of material that would provide inspiration for many of his most celebrated stories and poems.