"Hearts Of Gold And Other Verses is a collection of bush poetry by Scottish-Australian poet Will H. Ogilvie (1869-1963), one of the notable writers associated with the golden age of Australian bush verse. Ogilvie spent more than a decade in Australia from the late 1880s, working on sheep stations in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia, and his poetry drew heavily upon the people, horses and landscapes encountered during those years. Alongside writers such as Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, Ogilvie became particularly admired for his sympathetic and romantic portrayal of station life and horsemanship.
The poems gathered in Hearts Of Gold celebrate the stockmen, drovers, station hands, horses and remote country of pastoral Australia, combining humour, sentiment and nostalgia with Ogilvie's characteristic affection for the bush. Appropriately, the volume is dedicated "To Comrades of Camp-Fire and Muster", reflecting the author's first-hand experience of station life rather than observation from afar. Themes of mateship, courage, love, hardship and the passing of an older pastoral world recur throughout the collection, making the book an evocative literary record of Australian rural life around the turn of the twentieth century.
Published in London by Angus & Robertson Ltd in 1913, this example is identified on the title page as the "Sixth Thousand" and remains in its attractive original red embossed cloth bindings, with gilt lettering and decorative gilt work to the spine. Of additional interest is the evident early Australian ownership and use of the volume: the front endpaper is inscribed "Jan Coy, Salt Creek", while the rear leaves contain extensive contemporary handwritten bush verse and an old newspaper clipping of the poem Station Life. These additions give the copy considerable individual character and reinforce its connection with the rural Australian culture celebrated throughout Ogilvie's poetry."
Light wear to the covers and spine. Prior owner name and notes present as shown. Some light foxing present otherwise pages clean and well presented. A nice 1st edition copy in good to very good condition overall. Please study photos to further understand condition.
