Jock

John Shaw Neilson has been venerated as one of the finest lyrists in all English literature. Legends have been woven around the man with the unique gift, the genius who gave us the best poetry ever written in Australia. In this unconventional, compellingly readable study, Cliff Hanna puts to rest many of the myths that have grown up around the man his family called Jock. An authoritative biography drawing on all the known material about Neilson, Jock wears its scholarship lightly. Hanna tells a powerful story of a man driven, through relentloess hardship and family tragedy, to express his deepest feelings in a unique poetic voice.