How a dogged researcher tracked down the original Sentimental Bloke – and found a different man to C.J. Dennis’s loveable larrikin

How a dogged researcher tracked down the original Sentimental Bloke – and found a different man to C.J. Dennis’s loveable larrikin

When C.J. Dennis’s verse novel The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke was launched in 1915, it went off “like a packet of firecrackers”, as the book’s illustrator observed. This gently humorous story about a larrikin in love gave the nation something to smile about during the horrors of World War I. It sold 1,000 copies a week for its first year and quickly became Australia’s best-selling book of verse, a title it still holds. Goodreads The bloke in …