SOURCE: "Between Living and Dying: The Ground of Lawson's Art," in The Uncertain Self: Essays in Australian Literature and Criticism, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 42-55.

In the following essay, which was originally published in Overland in 1982, Heseltine evaluates Lawson's cultural significance, asserting that his realistic treatment of Australian themes and settings validates his reputation as a major literary artist.

The strident controversy that attended the publication of In Search of Henry Lawson in 1978 in some measure obscured what must surely be the most obvious implication of Manning Clark's title: that his subject still awaits a full and true discovery. The conflicting views of Clark and Colin Roderick [whose views are enumerated in his introduction to Henry Lawson: Short Stories and Sketches 1888-1922], indeed, merely schematized a prevailing pattern in Lawson commentary. Virtually every new account of our most enigmatic author has achieved its own conviction only at...