Henry Lawson (1867–1922) – An Australian writer and poet. He was the son of a Norwegian sailor, who settled in Australia during the “gold rush” of the 1860s. At the age of nine, he developed an ear infection and became partially deaf. By the time he was fourteen, he was totally deaf. He had a very difficult childhood as the family were very poor. After leaving school early, Lawson helped his father on building projects. Lawson was forced to combine literary activity with the labor, having replaced in different years a lot of professions. By 1890 Lawson had achieved some reputation as a writer of verse, poems such as ‘Faces in the Street’, ‘Andy’s Gone With Cattle’ and ‘The Watch on the Kerb’ being some of the more notable of that period. ‘While the Billy Boils’ (1896) was Lawson’s first major short-story collection. It remains one of the great classics of Australian literature.
