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W. F. Refshauge. Searching for the Man from Snowy River. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2013, 223pp. ISBN: 9781 9218 75571 AU$ 39.95 http://www.scholarly.info/book/299/
Searching for the Man from Snowy River is, as the title suggests, an examination of whether 'the man' in Banjo Paterson's famous poem may have been a real individual and, if so, his likely identity. 'The Man from Snowy River', first published in the Bulletin on 26 April 1890, was an immediate success and has remained so, capturing something essential, not only about the Australian landscape, but also to the Australian psyche. The poem plainly resonated in popular culture and for this reason the text warrants some examination of whether there are any historical facts to which it might be tethered.
'The Man from Snowy River' is the story of the prevailing of an underdog, and it is written in the compelling, lively verse for which Paterson became renowned. Whereas insofar as 'Clancy of the Overflow' was concerned, Paterson confirmed late in life that there was an actual event and a person behind that poem, no such confirmation was given with regards to 'The Man from Snowy River', thus it is both the fact of whether such a man existed and his possible identity that is in issue in Refshauge's investigation.
The book begins with an examination of the text of the poem itself, comparing the original published version to the later edition published in manuscript form and extracting the critical factual information from the verse that might be verified and used to identify the man. Refshauge begins with the 'colt from old Regret' (13) which, had one existed, might have been a piece of information...