Overview
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke was the first of CJ Dennis's "verse novels" and introduced the Sentimental Bloke, Doreen and Ginger Mick. Lavishly illustrated by Hal Gye (whose larrikin cherubs will be forever linked with The Bloke) it was first published in 1915 by Angus & Robertson of Sydney, with an introduction from Henry Lawson. A Pocket edition for the Trenches was issued in 1916, and an American edition titled Doreen and the Sentimental Bloke was published in the same year. Many further impressions of the book were printed over the years. The cover illustration above is from the 1916 printing of the 1915 edition. This cover was used in subsequent print runs until at least 1936.
Within eighteen months of its first publication in Oct 1915, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke had sold 66,000 copies and Dennis had captured the imagination of a nation. So too had Hal Gye, whose larrikin-cherubs were, and still are, accepted as the proper embodiment of The Bloke and his Doreen.
Lacking confidence in his work Dennis asked Henry Lawson to write the foreword to the 1st Edition. To acknowledge the 51st Thousand copy of the Bloke, Dennis himself wrote a foreword in 1916, which was used in all subsequent reprints until Barry Humphreys agreed to write a new foreword for Angus and Robertson in 1992.
From the Angus & Robertson hardback edition, 1915.
Foreword (to the First Edition) by Henry Lawson
My young friend Dennis has honoured me with a request to write a preface to his book. I think a man can best write a preface to his own book, provided he knows it is good. Also if he knows it is bad.
The Sentimental Bloke, while running through the Bulletin, brightened up many dark days for me. He is more perfect than any alleged "larrikin" or Bottle-O character I have ever attempted to sketch, not even excepting my own beloved Benno. Take the first poem for instance, where the Sentimental Bloke gets the hump. How many men, in how many different parts of the world -- and of how many different languages -- have had the same feeling -- the longing for something better -- to be something better?
The exquisite humour of The Sentimental Bloke speaks for itself; but there's a danger that its brilliance may obscure the rest, especially for minds, of all stations, that, apart from sport and racing, are totally devoted to boiling
in this social "pickle found-ery" of ours.
Doreen stands for all good women, whether down in the smothering alleys or up in the frozen heights.
And so, having introduced the little woman (they all seem 'little" women), I "dips me lid" -- and stand aside.
HENRY LAWSON
SYDNEY, 1st September, 1915.