Page:The Collected Verse of A. B. Paterson.djvu/9



eldest of a family of two sons and five daughters, was born on 17th February 1864 at Narambla, near Orange, New South Wales. His father, Andrew Bogle Paterson, came of an old Scotch family, and his mother was Rose, daughter of Robert Johnstone Barton, of Boree Station. Their home was Illalong, a station in the Yass district. Andrew Bogle Paterson had lost heavily in two previous grazing ventures in north-west New South Wales and Queensland, and now, a few years after the birth of his son, Illalong passed into the hands of a mortgagee, but he remained as manager.

There Andrew Barton Paterson lived until he was about ten years of age. Then, after some preparatory education, he attended Sydney Grammar School. He spent his vacations at the station, a good rider, enjoying the activities and associations which later provided material for his writings. Indoors, though without means to be lavish, there was comfort and also books and the cultivated interests that go with them. Literary inclinations in the family are indicated by the fact that Paterson's father preceded him as a contributor of verse to the Bulletin, and afterwards a sister, Jessie, also had verses published in its columns. During schooldays in Sydney Paterson lived congenially at Gladesville with his grandmother, Mrs Robert Barton. She, too, wrote verse, and circulated it privately among her friends, some of whom were prominent in Sydney cultural life of the time. At the age of sixteen he matriculated, and was articled to a firm of solicitors. After being himself enrolled as a solicitor, he became managing clerk for another law firm, and later practised in a partnership with the name of Street and Paterson.

When "Clancy of the Overflow", by "The Banjo", appeared in the 1889 Christmas number of the Bulletin, Rolf Boldrewood hailed it as "the best bush ballad since Gordon". Further verses with the same pen-name aroused considerable interest, as well as curiosity concerning the identity of the author, which was not revealed until the publication in 1895 of The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses. The success of this book was described in the London Literary Yearbook as "without parallel in colonial literary annals" and as giving its author a public wider than that of any other living writer in the language except Kipling. The first edition sold out in a fortnight, the tenth thousand was reached within a year, and altogether sales exceeded 100,000. During 1895 Paterson spent some