The Drover's Wife: A Collection

Description

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 has become an Australian icon. Other versions of the Lawson story have been written by Murray Bail, Frank Moorhouse, Barbara Jefferis, Mandy Sayer, David Ireland and others, up to the presentincluding Ryan O'Neill's graphic novel. Moorhouse has examined our ongoing fascination with this story, collected some of the best pieces of writing on the subject, adding commentary on each piece, and created a remarkable, gorgeous book.

Frank Moorhouse was born in the coastal town of Nowra, NSW. He worked as an editor of small-town newspapers and as an administrator and in the 1970s became a full-time writer. He has written fiction, non fiction, screenplays and essays and edited many collections of writing. Forty Seventeen was given a laudatory full-page review by Angela Carter in the New York Times and was named Book of the Year by the Age and 'moral winner' of the Booker Prize by the London magazine Blitz. Grand Days, the first novel in The Edith Trilogy, won the SA Premier's Award for Fiction. Dark Palace won the Miles Franklin Literary Award and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and the Age Book of the Year Award. Frank has undertaken numerous fellowships and his work has been translated into several languages. He was made a member of the Order of Australia for services to literature in 1985 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Griffith University in 1997.