Louis Esson's career as a playwright was, by most estimates, desultory, and his moments of demonstrable success were few and fleeting. But he has been widely regarded, nonetheless, as "the father of Australian drama," and if such a title is to be awarded, there is no other serious competitor; his claims have as much to do with the circumstances of his failures and the boldness of his articulated vision for Australian theater as with the plays themselves.

Thomas Louis Buvelot Esson was born in Edinburgh on 10 August 1878. He was eighteen months old when he sailed with his mother, Mary Jane Esson, to join her eight brothers and sisters in Australia; there is no record of what happened to Thomas Esson, the seaman who was Louis's father, then or thereafter. Mary Jane Esson's family, the Patersons, were already well established in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton when she and...