{"id":622128,"date":"2026-04-21T20:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/622128\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:54:12","slug":"henry-lawson-australias-most-tragic-writer-gets-second-chance-the-canberra-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/622128\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry Lawson: Australia&#8217;s most tragic writer gets second chance | The Canberra Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph_wrapper__6w7GG\">My sense of Lawson&#8217;s vulnerability at Bourke was heightened by the knowledge of all that came after. Professionally speaking, his bush stint was an overwhelming success. Fictionalising his experiences &#8211; including the lauded The Union Buries Its Dead &#8211; in 1896 alone he published a short story collection, While the Billy Boils, and a poetry collection, In the Days When the World Was Wide, and Other Verses. On a personal front, however, none of Lawson&#8217;s self-destructive habits were curbed during his city absence. His alcoholism, in particular, became more out of control. Later, he served time in Darlinghurst Gaol on charges including wife and child desertion; he was institutionalised for his deteriorating mental health. In 1922, aged 55 &#8211; disowned by friends and publishing insiders previously sympathetic to him &#8211; Australia&#8217;s favourite literary son died in the proverbial gutter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My sense of Lawson&#8217;s vulnerability at Bourke was heightened by the knowledge of all that came after. Professionally&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-622128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}