Variously called Australia's first modern poet, the father of modern Australian poetry, and "the master craftsman of them all," Kenneth Slessor continues to be admired in Australia and abroad for a comparatively small body of work. Yet one of his critics, Herbert C. Jaffa, has said that "some of [Slessor's] poems are among the most important written in English in modern literature." Backless Betty from Bondi was first published in 1930 as a poem to the “flappers” (modern gals) who moved to Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Introduced by Julian Croft this is its first publication in paperback.
