After some time in Western Australia and New Zealand Lawson returned to Sydney in 1898 and published with Angus and Robertson in 1900 the works On the Tracks and Over the Sliprails. Over the Sliprails includes:

• The Shanty Keeper
• A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper
• An Incident at Stiffner's
• A Hero of Redclay
• The Darling River
• A Case for the Oracle
• A Daughter of Maoriland
• New Year's Night
• Black Joe
• They Wait on the Wharf in Black
• Seeing the Last of You
• Two Boys at Grinder Brother's
• The Selector's Daughter
• Mitchell on the Sex and Other Problems
• The Master's Mistake
• The Story of the Oracle

Henry Lawson (1867-1922) was born and raised on the gold fields of Glenfell and Gulgong in New South Wales. He became known as a bush poet and short story writer following his work as journalist for the Queensland radical newspaper the Boomerang where his republican and socialist views found expression. He established his reputation as the people's poet and story teller. However, he lived an itinerant life with and without his family, living in Western Australia, New Zealand and England. On his return to Sydney in 1902 his alcoholism and mental illness increased, leading to his separation from his wife and children.