'Brian Matthews, academic, award-winning columnist and biographer, and Australia's foremost scholar on Henry Lawson and his mother Louisa, died last Thursday 2 June following complications related to lymphoma, at the age of 86. Brian first wrote for Eureka Street in February, 2002 and continued to contribute his monthly column for 20 years. Despite the sheer volume of work, here we present, in no particular order, a collection of some of Brian’s best pieces from the past 20 years.' (Introduction)