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The Sentimental Bloke and Doreen are famous characters in Australian popular culture, but their creator deserves to be better known. C.J. Dennis transformed the larrikin from a street thug into a respectable image of Australian identity, and helpedMoreThe Sentimental Bloke and Doreen are famous characters in Australian popular culture, but their creator deserves to be better known. C.J. Dennis transformed the larrikin from a street thug into a respectable image of Australian identity, and helped shape the Anzac legend.Many people regarded Dennis himself as a sentimental bloke, but this book shows he was a much more complex and sometimes darker personality - not only examining his humorous and lovable side, but also his struggles with alcohol and depression, his political activism, his marriage and his financial dealings.An Unsentimental Bloke traces Denniss early years in rural South Australia, his work on a bohemian newspaper in Adelaide and move to Melbourne as a freelancer for the Bulletin, his period of political involvement, followed by enormous successes (he was more popular than Banjo Paterson or Henry Lawson ever were), spectacular fall, and re-emergence as an elder statesman of Australian letters.This timely and fascinating biography of Clarence Michael James Dennis, better known as Clarrie, reveals this hugely popular writer as he really was. - Nic Klaasen, Flinders Ranges Research journalPhilip Butterss grew up in Melbourne, studied at the University of Sydney, where he completed a PhD on Australian ballads, and now teaches Australian literature and film at the University of Adelaide. He has published widely on Australian cultural history and is currently working on a history of literary Adelaide. An Unsentimental Bloke, the life and work of C.J. Dennis by Philip Butterss
