Despite its condition , this 1930 sixth Platypus edition of The Sentimental Bloke , by poet C.J.Dennis , is a gem , with interesting inclusions , such as a taped in photo of the author and a reference to a scene from the film , The Sentimental Bloke , made by Raymond Longford in 1919, said to be the most popular film in the National Film Collection's lending section .
Another insert included a folded, lengthy article , part of which below , about Dennis , from the Sunday Mail, August 29,1976.
The article, by Gordon Hale , tells how Clarence Michael James Dennis was born in an hotel in Auburn , north of Adelaide , on September 7, 1876, his Irish father , a master mariner, who had run the pub for 12 years and others in the district .
By Peter Simon
At one stage my wife and I had a combined antique and bookshop at Saddleworth , not far from Auburn , and I became interested in Dennis after finding a small album of early photographs relating to the Auburn area , which the National Library bought .
Because of his mother's ill health, his father's second wife, young Clarence was brought up by spinster aunts in Adelaide and attended the Christian Brothers College . He was 14 when his Irish mother died at the same age as the first wife , 39.
At the age of 19, Dennis became a solicitor's clerk, began to have poems published , including in The Worker and Sydney Bulletin . In 1897 he was on the staff of the Adelaide Critic , a weekly . Working as a barman in one of his father's pubs at Laura , where it is said he became too fond of beer, he left and went to the booming mining town of Broken Hill, travelling like a swaggie. In Melbourne he worked as a freelance journalist
In 1917 he married Olive Harriot Herron who published two novels and his biography. There is a memorial fountain to Dennis in the old pub at Auburn .
A previous owner of the book at the top had resided in East Ipswich (l946) and Booval, Queensland .
On his return to Adelaide he became editor of the Critic . In 1906 he started The Gadfly, a literary magazine . During WWl, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke was a phenomenal success , especially with soldiers , selling 65,000 copies in the first year, published in England and the United States, 285, 000 sales by l976. He was regarded as one of the top three Australian poets, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson the other two .
In 1917 he married Olive Harriot Herron who published two novels and his biography. There is a memorial fountain to Dennis in the old pub at Auburn .
A previous owner of the book at the top had resided in East Ipswich (l946) and Booval, Queensland .
