Henry Lawson - Australian Bush Poetry

Title

[Pen used by Henry Lawson at Leeton, N.S.W.] [realia].

Date

[between 1904 and 1922]

Extent

1 pen : pencil lead, wood, steel and string ; length 10.3 cm.

Summary

This pen is actually the end of a pencil in which a steel nib has been inserted and attached with a piece of string coiled up around the pencil. The letters "RNR" have been encrusted at the end of the pencil.

Biography

Henry Lawson, born in 1867 was an Australian poet and writer who wrote about Australia, he was totally deaf at 14 years of age. He married in 1896 and had two children and died alone at home aged 55 years. Lawson's poetry and prose inspired the feeling that life was worth living during the hardship of the 1890's depression. The great irony is that Lawson himself was a deeply divided man. He was a soul burdened with an insatiable craving for love, a combative spirit with impossible hopes that mankind might sort itself out.

Notes

Condition: worn.

Title devised by cataloguer based on information from accompanying material.

"The pen in this envelope was one used by Henry Lawson at Leeton, N.S.W. It was given to Clair Kennedy by Mrs Jim Gordon ("Grahame"), and passed on to me by Clair, on 11/11/1963. Harry Pearce".--Accompanying material.

Exhibited: "National Treasures from Australia's Great Libraries". Touring exhibition December 2005 - August 2007, organised by the National Library of Australia. AuCNL