Frank Moorhouse

Frank Moorhouse was an Australian novelist, essayist, editor, and cultural commentator whose work ranged from short fiction to the acclaimed Edith trilogy. The Drover’s Wife is his 2017 collection about the long afterlife of Henry Lawson’s 1892 story in Australian culture. Moorhouse brings together fiction, essays, images, and commentary connected to Lawson’s bush woman, while also considering Russell Drysdale’s 1945 painting and later reinterpretations by writers and performers. Penguin Random House Australia describes the book as both a collection and a reading adventure, with Moorhouse acting as guide through more than a century of response and revision. The project suits his broader interest in how public myths change as artists, institutions, and audiences revisit them. Rather than offering another single retelling, he maps a network of competing versions, including feminist, comic, visual, theatrical, and critical approaches, and asks why one spare frontier narrative became such a persistent national reference point.