Brief Biography

Edward Dyson was born in 1865 at Morrison, near Ballarat, in Victoria. He was the son of a mining engineer and elder brother to Will and Ambrose, both artists and writers. Edward followed his family around the goldfields of Victoria in his early years and left school at the age of 12 to become a hawker, and later a trucker in the mines of Victoria and Tasmania. He moved into writing and journalism while still in his teens and took up the editoriship of the Melbourne periodical Life at the age of 21. Throughout his working life he produced vast amounts of poetry, though his metier was the short story. His first collection of verse, Rhymes from the Mines and Other Lines was published in 1896, and was followed by a series of novels and short story collections. Edward Dyson died in 1931.

Bibliography

Novels
In the Roaring Fifties 1906
The Missing Link 1908
Tommy the Hawker and Snifter His Boy 1911
Loves of Lancelot 1914
The Escapades of Ann 1919

Short Story Collections
Below and On Top 1898
Fact'ry 'Ands 1906
Benno and Some of the Push: Being Further "Fact'ry 'Ands" Stories 1911
The Golden Shanty 1911
Spats' Fact'ry: More Fact'ry 'Ands 1914

Poetry Collections
Rhymes From the Mines 1896
"Hello, Soldier!" Khaki Verse 1919

Selected Poetry

You can read the full text of the following Edward Dyson poems:

The Auction
Cricket is a Serious Thing
The Happy Flatite
Highly Desirable
An Inequitable Impost
Men of Australia
My Typewriter
The Old Whim Horse
Peter Simson's Farm
Quits
Simple Sister Goes to Sydney
A Thermometrical Ballade
To a Politician
The Weeds
When Beauty is Bald
Wherefore Art Thou Romeo?"
Why Spring Fell Flat
William and Bill
Worked-Out Mine

This page and its contents are copyright ©2004 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: March 25, 2004.