'The author writes with the immediacy of a fine documentary. 'Kieza has added hugely to the depth of knowledge about our greatest military general in a book that is timely' Tim Fischer, Courier-Mail well-crafted and extensively documented' - Weekend Australian 'A free-flowing biography of a great Australian figure' - John Howard 'A staggering accomplishment that can't be missed by history buffs and story lovers alike'. 'Vivid, detailed and well written' - Daily Telegraph one of the most nuanced portraits to date' - The Australian Grantlee Kieza, the author of critically acclaimed bestselling biographies of such important figures as Banjo Paterson, Joseph Banks, Lachlan Macquarie and John Monash, reveals the extraordinary rise, devastating fall and enduring legacy of an Australian icon. His heroic figures such as The Drover's Wife and the fearless unionists striking out for a better deal helped define Australia's character, and while still a young man, his storytelling drew comparisons on the world stage with Tolstoy, Gorky and Kipling.īut Henry Lawson's own life may have been the most compelling saga of all, a heart-breaking tale of brilliance, lost love, self-destruction and madness.

A controversial figure today, he was one of the first writers to shine a light on the hardships faced by Australia's hard-toiling wives and mothers, and among the first to portray, with sympathy, the despair of Indigenous Australians at the ever-encroaching European tide. Lawson wrote from the heart, documenting what he saw from his earliest days as a poor, lonely, handicapped boy with warring parents on a worthless farm, to his years as a literary lion, then as a hopeless addict cadging for drinks on the streets, and eventually as a prison inmate, locked up in a tiny cell beside murderers. Born on the goldfields in 1867, he became the voice of ordinary Australians, recording the hopes, dreams and struggles of bush battlers and slum dwellers, of fierce independent women, foreign fathers and larrikin mates. Henry Lawson captured the heart and soul of Australia and its people with greater clarity and truth than any writer before him. The extraordinary rise, devastating fall and enduring legacy of an Australian icon

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