While the Billy Boils (short story collection)

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While the Billy Boils
While the Billy Boils, 1913 - frontispiece.png
"They would talk of some old lead"
Frontispiece from the collection,
by Frank P. Mahony
Author Henry Lawson
Language English
GenreShort story collection
Publisher Angus and Robertson
Publication date
1896
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages333 pp
Preceded byShort Stories in Prose and Verse 
Followed by In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses  

While the Billy Boils is a collection of short stories by the Australian writer Henry Lawson, published by Angus and Robertson in 1896. It includes "The Drover's Wife", "On the Edge of a Plain", and "The Union Buries Its Dead". [1]

Contents

The collection consists of 52 short stories from a variety of sources. [1]

Contents

Critical reception

A reviewer in The Queenslander found much to like about the book but also noted its limitations: "..most of the sketches can best be described as Bulletinesque, the evidence of their having been written with a view to appearance in that popular weekly being unmistakable. There is plenty of variety in the book; fun and pathos, and the two commingled, with running through nearly all a note of cynicism - not altogether spontaneous in the author, but rather inspired by his associations — which one has come to expect in the writings of Henry Lawson." [2]

Similarly the reviewer in The Australian Town and Country Journal: "They are just such anecdotes and snap-shots of general conversation which would be in keeping with the time for rest and jest around camp-fires, and of course the author picked up his materials under such circumstances. They can scarcely all be denominated "stories" - inasmuch as many of them are merely impressions of men and things, and are no more tales than the descriptive writing of a journalist. These impressions give anything but a cheerful view of Australian life up country, The stranger who knows not Australia will doubtless apply Mr. Lawson's description to the whole country outside the towns, but the stories do not deal with the country as a whole, but with that part of it referred to as "out back."" [3]

Film adaptation

Several of the stories in this collections were adapted for the screen in a 1921 film. It was written, directed and produced by Beaumont Smith. [4] It is considered a lost film.

See also

Notes

The State Library of New South Wales holds the correction drafts of this title. They are available online. [5]

References