This is a volume of poetry by Henry Lawson, the well-known Australian poet. Some of the poems in this collection are still widely taught in school, some others are not widely known at this time. All of them, however, paint vivid images of Australia around the turn of the last century. As The Academy put it in 1909, "These ballads (for such they mostly are) abound in spirit and manhood, in the colour and smell of Australian soil. They deserve the popularity which they have won in Australia, and which, we trust, this edition will now give them in England." - Summary by Carolin