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

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After scraping the charcoal from the bottom, Dave was not too sure of its edibility for
“there were streaks of dry flour, and streaks of wet dough, and what wasn’t powder or
paste was old Silurian rock”. Tom attempts to disguise his shortcomings as a
bushman-cook by telling Dave he was ‘too soft for this piratin’ game” and used his
fussiness as an excuse for his own lack of appetite.
Although Brady’s prose in these serials is facile and humorous there are times when
he raises the suspense with some find dramatic writing. Particularly is this true when
he recounts the story of Frenchy, the murderer who escapes from the penal settlement
on New Caledonia with three companions, only to suffer the tortures of starvation in
an open boat. “From prisoners of men they had become prisoners of God”; and they
resort to cannibalism in their distress. 1 There is the facility for attention to detail of the
trained newspaper man, lyrical description, dramatic action and a genuine sympathy
and humanism. If there is a prevailing feature of his writing in the short story and the
serial it is a concern with understanding people as people – to comprehend their
feelings and aspirations, their motivations and relationships. In this endeavour, it is
evident that he is more at ease with country folk, perhaps because of their relative
unsophistication, but one suspects also because he had greater admiration for the
moral qualities of the countryman, whom he saw as nearer the Australian ideal than
was the city-dweller. That there was a vogue in the 1890’s to write of the country was
relevant. Again, as a Bulletin contributor and avid reader, he was subject to its
influence and to that of his literary friends, particularly Lawson, Daley and Quinn.
While it is not difficult to charge Brady with dilettantism in general, it is possible to
use the serials in particular as evidence of shoddy workmanship and poor standards.
There is, even in the last serial, evidence of slovenly writing, faults in grammar (he
was his own editor) and ample evidence of a lack of pride of craftsmanship. Even
when it was republished by Rowlandson, no revisions were made to Tom Pagdin,
each episode forming a chapter of the book. It is possible to argue that Brady has
made an interesting contribution to the native novel of adventure and humour, aimed
primarily at a youthful readership perhaps, but certainly an Australian one and with
appeal to all ages. He displays a deep understanding of the local scene and does his
share to employ that atmosphere and feeling in the field of literature, not spectacularly
not perhaps particularly ably, but certainly with good intention, humbly,
sympathetically and sincerely.
b. Non-fiction. Brady’s non-fiction includes three biographies, several personal
travel books and others which may be called loosely commercial or geographical.
Very proud of his ancestry, he wrote in the q1930’s an account of the main events
in the life of his father. Two Frontiers however, was not published until 1944,
much to his chagrin, for he saw its American content assuring a ready sale among
the many American serviceman in Australia during the war. Although it has all
ingredients for a gripping and vital narrative, it is overlaid with digression and too
much detail, partly obscuring the account of the adventurous life which the senior
Brady led from his birth in Ireland, through his adventures as a real “Mark
Twain” (a marksman on a Mississippi steamboat) and as a fighter in the Indian
Wars. It follows him through his whaling activities our of New Bedford, as a
soldier in Lincoln’s army in the Civil War and as a trooper in the New South
Wales Police, pursuing bushrangers in the central west of the state.
In writing Two Frontiers. Brady had some records which his father had written about
his adventures as well as voluminous notes on family history which he himself had
collected as a result of his research in private and public archives. One of the
distractions of the book is therefore the large amount of information it contains,
irrelevant to the carrying forward of the biography or an understanding of the milieu
in which his life was led.