Will Ogilvie in Australia
This book traces the career of Will H Ogilvie, a young Scottish writer who lived and worked in Australia during the golden years of Australian literature, the 1890s. Inspired by his experiences as a jackeroo, drover, shearer and horse-breaker on far-flung stations, Ogilvie wrote immensely popular ballads and stories that rivalled those of his contemporaries, Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson.
This biography looks at Ogilvie's work in the context of his remarkable life in Australia and seeks to explain how this outsider came to so successfully record the romance, comedy and tragedy of bush life. It also uncovers startling evidence about Ogilvie's close friend and fellow balladeer - the infamous Breaker Morant.
This volume includes the best of Ogilvie's verse and a collection of short stories never before published in Australia. These present an entertaining and vivid first-hand account of outback life and outback society a century ago.
