Edward Sorenson, born of mixed Norse and Australian parentage at Dyraaba, near Casino, NSW, in 1869, was a 'cowboy on Wooroowoolgen, N.S.W. at eight' and had left home by the age of nine to live on a farming property. In between 'corn-planting and corn-pulling time' he attended school at Greenridge, New South Wales - 'if there was not chipping to do'. At the age of fourteen Sorenson was apprenticed to a carpenter in nearby Casino and remained there for two years before returning to Wooroowoolgen as a stockrider. He subsequently worked in various farming roles and for a butter factory.
Sorenson continued his peripatetic life. He spent short periods in Sydney and Brisbane, went droving and to the gold fields, and worked as a rouseabout and general handyman. He later travelled through South Australia and Victoria.
Sorenson contributed to a number of journals and was encouraged in his writing by J. F. Archibald. Much of his work, which included poetry, sketches, short stories and articles, remained uncollected by the 1950s, but one selection appeared in Quinton's Rouseabout and Other Stories (1908). Another collection was Chips and Splinters (1919), and he issued one novel, The Squatter's Ward (1908). He was a member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union and the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, and his interests are reflected in his descriptions of wildlife, often appearing in early 1930s issues of The Queenslander, as well as in books of nature stories and sketches, including Spotty the Bower-Bird and Other Stories (1921). He was also a member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers.
Major source: A. G. Stephens 'Australian Autobiographies', vol.2.
