Language English Pages 184 Genre Bush ballad Country Australia | Publication date 1895 Originally published 1895 Page count 184 Publisher Angus & Robertson | |
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Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) Followed by Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses Similar Banjo Paterson books, Other books | ||
The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses (1895) is the first collection of poems by Australian poet Banjo Paterson. It was released in hardback by Angus and Robertson in 1895, and features the poet's widely anthologised poems "The Man from Snowy River", "Clancy of the Overflow", "Saltbush Bill" and "The Man from Ironbark". It also contains the poet's first two poems that featured in The Bulletin Debate, a famous dispute in The Bulletin magazine from 1892-93 between Paterson and Henry Lawson.
Contents
The collection includes 48 poems by the author that are reprinted from various sources, along with a preface by Rolf Boldrewood, who defined the collection as "the best bush ballads written since the death of Lindsay Gordon".
Contents
Critical reception
On its original publication in Australia The Sydney Morning Herald saw semblances of Rudyard Kipling's collection Barrack-Room Ballads, but agreed with Boldrewood that the major influence on the poems was the work of Adam Lindsay Gordon.
The Adelaide Chronicle summed up the collection with the description: "There flits before us a wild phantasmagoria of break-neck steeplechases, conflicts of police and outlaws, hairbreadth escapes, and marvellous examples of bush, prowess, courage, and skill."
The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature declared it "the most successful volume of poetry ever published in Australia".