The poems he wrote for a Sydney newspaper led him into reporting,
and he went to South Africa to cover the Boer War. Always a fair man,
he had his doubts about the war and was a little too vocal about it
for the tastes of some of his readers. During the First World War
he served in Egypt as a Major in a Remount Unit, training horses
for the war. This fit one of his main interests in life -- horses --
a preoccupation which is very evident in his poems,
and even in his choice of pseudonym -- "The Banjo" was a race-horse.
The works for which Paterson is famous were mostly written
before the First World War, and are collected in three books of poems,
The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses (1895), Rio Grande's Last Race
and Other Verses (1902), and Saltbush Bill, J.P. and Other Verses (1917).
His prose works include An Outback Marriage (1906), and Three Elephant Power
and Other Stories (1917), the latter of which is a collection of tall tales
and serious (but often humourous) reporting. In fact, above all else
it is perhaps Paterson's sense of humour that sets him apart
from such balladists as Rudyard Kipling and Robert Service.
Pages:
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117