Louisa Lawson: Collected Poems with Selected Critical Commentaries

Edited by Leonie Rutherford and Megan Roughley
with Nigel Spence

Louisa Lawson (1848-1920) was a pioneer feminist journalist, suffragist, labour and republican activist, and is often referred to as "the mother of the women's vote in New South Wales". She was also the mother of Australian literary icon, Henry Lawson. Louisa Lawson was herself a writer of poetry, short stories, polemic and a journalist of note.

Lawson has virtually been forgotten as a writer since her death. Though she has recently begun to attract attention as a colonial woman writer, and her feminist journal The Dawn is being mined for its cultural content, serious work on Louisa Lawson has been hampered by lack of access to her texts, most of which have not been reprinted since her lifetime.

Many literary scholars are aware of Lawson's collection of 52 poems, published in 1905, entitled The Lonely Crossing and Other Poems. This new edition of her collected verse contains 171 poems. Some were published in NSW journals by Lawson, others remain in manuscript in various Sydney archives. The collection, thus, more than triples the number of her verses available to the student and researcher of late-nineteenth and early twentieth century Australian poetry.

In addition to making Louisa Lawson's poetic oeuvre more generally available, this book contains a number of modern critical commentaries on various aspects of Lawson's art, life and political activism. Two articles by Michael Ackland set Lawson's writing in the context of colonial women's poetry and examine the love lyrics in her final manuscript collection; Olive Lawson provides a bio-critical overview and appreciation of her verse; Nigel Spence examines her patriotic poetry of the First World War; Leonie Rutherford examines Lawson's textual practice as a reviser of her work; and Robert Dingley demonstrates the organizational logic of The Lonely Crossing. The commentaries also place Lawson in the context of women's history and the history of nationhood in Australia. Pioneer feminist historian, Audrey Oldfield, details Lawson's role in the NSW Women's Suffrage League, while Susan Pfisterer-Smith uses Lawson as an example to critique prevailing historiographical practice in Australia. Christopher Lee discusses Lawson's writing of "the Nation" and Robin Eaden offers a cultural overview of The Dawn as an early feminist journal and institution.

To order a copy of Louisa Lawson: Colelcted Poems with Selected Critical Commentaries., email CALLS and state the number of copies required at $30 each (incl. postage and handling), your name, return snail mail address and a contact phone number.

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