One of Australia’s famous poems, The Man from Snowy River by A.B. Banjo Paterson was first published in 1890 in The Bulletin.

Australians were developing a sense of national identity and in The Man from Snowy River they saw strength of character, skill, bravery, adaptability and risk-taking – qualities that could equip a small population of people to unite and build a great nation in a vast and challenging land.

While many settlers at the time were city dwellers, they related to the unique images represented by the hardship and isolation of the Australian bush. This emerging national consciousness was enhanced by a sense of difference from those back in the Mother Country.

The images that the words of Paterson evoked were epitomised by artists of the Heidelberg School, an Australian art movement, inspired by the Australian bush; for example Tom Robert’s A Breakaway!

Image: A.B. Banjo Paterson from The Bulletin, 8 April 1893