SOURCE: Wright, Judith. In Australian Writers and Their Work: Charles Harpur, pp. 5-32. Melbourne: Lansdowne Press, 1963.

In the following excerpt, Wright addresses Harpur's family background, early employment, and the unprofessional editing of a posthumous edition of his works. The essay concludes with an attempt to summarize the importance of Harpur's work in Australia's literary canon.

I

Many poets have been born in unfortunate circumstances; some have lived and died unfortunate; but poets can usually trust to a posthumous future for justice. Few are as unlucky as Charles Harpur, Australia's first and least-regarded poet.

Harpur was born under precisely that cloud which in early-Victorian Australia was least forgivable—he was the son of convicts. His father, Joseph Harpur, an Irishman, was indicted in London for highway robbery, with others, and was sentenced to death. Reprieved and transported, he arrived in Sydney in November 1800, at the age of 24, and was...