SOURCE: "The Drover's Wife Writ Large: One Measure of Lawson's Achievement," in Meanjin, Vol. XXVII, No. 112, March, 1968, pp. 54-66.

In the following essay, Matthews determines the significance of "The Drover's Wife" and "'Water Them Geraniums, '" maintaining that the stories are a "crucial stage in Lawson's artistic development. "

'The Drover's Wife' is almost certainly one of Henry Lawson's best known stories. Relentlessly anthologized, it deserves its eminence, even if the attention of most readers and many editors has been too much focused upon the pioneering aspects of the story or its skilfully controlled suspense. It is no doubt true that 'The Drover's Wife' pictures 'the self-sacrificing lonely life of the bushwoman, who in those days helped to lay the foundation of our prosperity' [according to Colin Roderick, in the introduction to Henry Lawson, Fifteen Stories], but I feel that the story's real significance and merit are better appreciated...