A gem bought on the last day of our holiday in Tasmania from the Salamanca Markets in Hobart. Every secondhand bookstall there seemed over-priced and otherwise desirable volumes I left there, but this copy of Slessor was a bargain in so many ways.

I have loved Slessor's poetry since studying him in High School - an achievement when the appreciation of so much literature was strangled by over-analysis encouraged in the young and naive. I could read him forever.

To read Slessor's story was a revelation. I knew nothing, and was totally unaware of the pathos of his war and post war life, with his poetry dried up and his domestic life chaotic.

The book is extremely well written, its judgements judicious and its breadth wide and well informed. It was a pleasure to be guided so eloquently and knowledgeably without pretension.

The inclusion of some early pieces I didn't know, and some examples of his comic light verse, and extracts from his war dispatches is the gift of such a book. I appreciated discussion of the publications of his poems and have a few books to pursue now this one's done.