Henry Lawson was born in Grenfell, NSW, in 1867. At 14 he became totally deaf, an affliction which many have suggested rendered his world all the more vivid and subsequently enlivened his later writing.

After a stint of coach painting, he edited a periodical, The Republican, and began writing verse and short stories. His first work of short fiction appeared in the Bulletin in 1888.

He travelled and wrote short fiction and poetry throughout his life and published numerous collections of both even as his marriage collapsed and he descended into poverty and mental illness. He died in 1922, leaving his wife and two children.