A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF EDWIN JAMES BRADY - Mallacoota ...

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“But in real life, my readers, where the real people live,
There is much to be forgotten, and the rest we might forgive.”
Brady, “Dan’s Romance”.
Brady’s breadth of interest is evident from the quantity and range of verse, though
admittedly his achievement is not of high standard, even when compared with his
contemporaries. To this achievement, however, must be added his prose writings,
which are in themselves considerable, even if his editorially and articles in political
journals are omitted. There are many short stories, some published in Truth, The
Arrow and The Grip but many still unpublished and existing in manuscript among
his collections in the libraries. In addition there are several long serials which
appeared in The Arrow, one of which was republished in book form by A.C.
Rowlandson. The non-fiction consists of several biographies (as well as the autobiographical
Life’s Highway), and a large body of what may be called geographical or
travel writing. This includes accounts of journeys as well as more general publicity
writing for specific areas of the country, culminating in quantity, if not in time, in the
gigantic Australia Unlimited, a work which surveyed Australian development up to
1918. In addition to these large quantities of prose, there are many articles on
geographical, historical, literary and personal themes contributed to general
magazines such as Bank Notes and Life Digest. In these sections as in the previous,
the very versatility of the man, the catholicity of interest and the volume of work
achieved is more noteworthy than any one outstanding feature of it. It is only fair to
say however, that Brady shows sufficient skill in his prose to make one regret that he
did not give more careful attention to his formal writing and less regard to the day-today
exigencies of journalism. There are several occasions when he rises above the
mediocre, leading one to deplore the lack of a singleness of purpose which might have
strengthened his achievement, even at the expense of the width of his writing.