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

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Out of these acquaintances and friendships there came many stories, a rather poignant
one concerning James Dwyer, an Australian who achieved considerable success as a
short story writer for popular journals in America. He kept two secretaries busy with
dictated material when on holidays in Sydney, where he met Brady:
Dwyer had a good yarn about Jimmy Ryan .. ‘Narranghi Boori’. After
things came right with James Francis Dwyer, he moved up to a luxurious flat
on Broadway. His nose was in the MS one evening when a negro janitor
announced a visitor. ‘What’s his name?’ asked the perspiring author, lifting
one eye from his copy. ‘De gentleman gib no name, sah; but he opine dat he
come from Australia, sah, an’ know you out dere.’ ‘Show him in, then’ said
Dwyer. To his surprise in walked Jimmy Ryan, jauntily, with his crookhandled
cane and all the dignity that accompanied him wherever he went.
‘Well,’ said Dwyer, telling the tale, ‘I was knocked; I was delighted to see an
old mate and at the same time stunned by the unexpected arrival.
Involuntarily, as I stood up to shake hands I shouted, ‘Good God, Jimmy, how
did you raise the fare?’ Ryan stopped dead, turned as red in the face as an
Indian major whose coloured servant has trodden on his rheumatic foot,
glared at me with indignant scorn, and hissed out… ‘That’s a damn nice
welcome from one Australian to another! You’re no mate of mine, Dwyer, and
you can go to hell!’ Before I recovered from the double shock Jimmy was
gone. I dashed to the lift and shouted down the elevator, ‘Come back, Jim,
and don’t be a fool.’ But Jimmy was gone. I had robbed myself of a good talk
about Australia, which I was hungry for just then.’ 1
Brady’s ability to draw a verbal portrait of his acquaintances was considerable. On
the biographical details which “Grant Hervey” supplied to him, Brady wrote in part:
A genius with a kink would be the best description of this striking but ill-fated
personality. He was a handsome egotist with a low-set ear. His vanity
overwhelmed him, forced him to seek the spotlight regardless of consequences.
He wrote swinging verses full of fire and force. He was no mean orator and
an engaging conversationalist…
He was heavy, portentous, bearded and looked like a Syrian priest run to
flesh… He had a sardonic, unscrupulous talent. 2
In 1895 Brady sent a collection of his verses to England by way of his friend, Nat
Gould. Gould apologised for his failure to have them published in book form in
England. He wrote to Brady to the effect that Routledge’s considered poetry did not
sell sufficiently well and advised him to try his hand at a novel. 3 In a further letter,
Gould advised Brady 4 not to send short stories either, but had a promise from the
published to look at a novel. But the offer was not followed up, and another
opportunity knocked in vain. Gould discouraged Brady from going to London as
conditions for aspiring writers were very difficult at that time. It is useless to surmise
what effect would have ensued if Brady had had a novel successfully published at this
stage of his literary career.
1 Southerly No. 1, 1954, p. 53
2 Brady’s Autographl Letters 1891 – 1915, in Mitchell Library.
3 Brady’s Autograph Letters 1891 – 1915 in Mitchell Library
4 Gould to Brady, 5.9.1895. in Mitchell Library