In late-1890, a businessman and journalist by the name of Gresley Lukin took ownership of Brisbane’s Boomerang newspaper. Lukin invited the 23-year-old Henry Lawson to relocate to Brisbane to join the staff of the Boomerang. When Henry started, he found himself working alongside one Alfred George Stephens, who later became an influential editor at the Bulletin. This was the start of the long association between Henry and A.G. Stephens.
Henry had many poems and several prose works published in the Boomerang while he worked there, and a number of those pieces later appeared in Henry’s published books. Additionally, he was employed to write a regular column for the Boomerang entitled, Country Crumbs. It is from that column, we took the name for our Henry Lawson’s Crumbs podcast.
Lawson works referred to in the episode:
The Third Murder. Originally published in The Boomerang 13 December 1890.
The Free-Selector’s Daughter. Originally published in The Boomerang 28 March 1891. Collected in In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses (February 1896).
A Narrow Escape. Originally published in The Boomerang 4 April 1891. Collected in Short Stories in Prose and Verse (December 1894).
Alligator Desolation: A Ghost Story. Originally published in The Boomerang 25 April 1891. Collected in Short Stories in Prose and Verse as We Called Him “Ally” for Short (December 1894).
Freedom on the Wallaby. Originally published in The [Brisbane] Worker 16 May 1891. Collected in For Australia and Other Poems (October 1913).
Bogg of Geebung. Originally published in The Boomerang 23 May 1891. Collected in While the Billy Boils (August 1896).
The Shame of Going Back. Originally published in The Bulletin 10 October 1891. Collected in In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses(February 1896).
The Cambaroora Star. Originally published in The Boomerang 19 December 1891. Collected in In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses (February 1896).
‘Pursuing Literature’ in Australia. Originally published in The Bulletin 21 January 1899.
A Fragment of Autobiography [handwritten manuscript]. Not dated, but composed 1903-1906. State Library of New South Wales: Mitchell Library.
