In 1894 Arthur Hoey Davis, a young Brisbane public servant who dabbled in journalism, sat down to devise a nom de plume for his rowing column in the local newspaper. The by-line he chose was “Steele Rudd”.
The Sydney Bulletin began to publish his stories in 1895 and four years later his first book, On Our Selection, appeared. A comic writer of genius, he became Queensland’s best known and most popular writer. His works were widely read as those of Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson and C. J. Dennis.
The man behind the Rudd legend, however, has been largely hidden for over a century. Richard Fotheringham’s biography provides startling new insights into Steele Rudy’s life: about his determination to earn his living as a writer after his career in the public service came to an end, his troubled marriage, the poverty of his last years and, after his death in 1935, the appropriation of his work as Dad and Dave on radio and film, in cartoons and jokes.
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