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Inscribed in pencil on front endpaper: ‘R.G.M.’.

Includes three loose handwritten sheets, poem ‘Glamour Golden’, signed ‘Bernard O’Dowd, Melbourne 1916’.

“Out of some singing woman’s heart-break plea, Australia’s dawn shall flush with Sappho’s rose” Extract from The Bush by Bernard O’Dowd (1866-1953)

Walter Murdoch’s Introduction succeeds in the challenge of introducing the reader with the complexity of Bernard O’Dowd’s poems. The poems read like a stream of consciousness, rich with classical literary references, Australian toil and an unbridled anger towards the Commonwealth. O’Dowd’s most notable poem, The Bush, showcases both his literary genius and unruly nature as an Anarchist Communist. Accordingly, he spent his life partaking in many political groups, working at the Victorian Supreme Court and writing. As a part of the Menzies Collection, this book demonstrates that Menzies’s love for poetry and Australian prosperity transcended political differences.