Joe Wilson is a

fictional character In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, ...

appearing in several well-known short stories by Australian writer

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...

. Joe Wilson first appeared in " Brighten's Sister-in-law," the first story Lawson wrote after his arrival to England, and the longest he had ever written up to that time.''The Penguin Henry Lawson Short Stories'' (first published 1986); with an introduction by John Barnes, Camberwell, Victoria: Penguin Books Australia, pp. 13, 224-5 It was first published in ''

Blackwood's Magazine ''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...

'' in November 1900.

Published Joe Wilson Stories

Publication

" Joe Wilson's Courtship" was the final Joe Wilson story to have been written, though, chronologically, its events take place first. In 1901, when all four stories were published in the collection ''Joe Wilson and His Mates'', the stories were printed in order of narrative chronology. After the fourth story, Lawson added the following note, under the title "The Writer Wants to Say a Word":

Reception

According to ''The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature'', the sequence of Joe Wilson stories "has been justly admired for its controlled presentation of the process of alienation and disintegration wrought by the experience of bush life."Kerryn Goldsworthy (2000) "Fiction from 1900 to 1970." In
''The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature''
(ed. by Elizabeth Webby),

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

: Cambridge, UK pp 105-133. Kerryn Goldsworthy writes that the stories represent "the most sustained example we have of Lawson's skills in narrative and characterisation."

Adaptations

The Joe Wilson stories were adapted into the 1924 silent movie ''

Joe Joe or JOE may refer to: Arts Film and television * ''Joe'' (1970 film), starring Peter Boyle * ''Joe'' (2013 film), starring Nicolas Cage * ''Joe'' (TV series), a British TV series airing from 1966 to 1971 * ''Joe'', a 2002 Canadian animated ...

'', and the 1998 miniseries '' Joe Wilson''. They were also adapted into a segment of the 1957 movie '' Three in One''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Joe Characters in novels of the 20th century Wilson, Joe Public domain characters in the United States