Barron Field (October 23, 1786 - 1846 / London, England.)

Barron Field was born October 23, 1786 in England. He arrived in Australia in 1816 to serve as judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. In 1819 the government printer published Field's First Fruits of Australian Poetry which contained two poems and is generally regarded as the first book of poetry to be published in Australia.

The only Australian publication ever reviewed by Charles Lamb, whose lukewarm eulogy appeared in the “Examiner” in 1820. After saying something about the author, who had quitted his friends, his family, and his pleasing avocations, “to go and administer tedious justice in inauspicious and unliterary Thiefland,” Lamb goes on to say: — “The First Fruits... more »

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