Cirrus@Austlit

Brian James was the writing name used by John Tierney. James grew up on a farm at Eurunderee, and was the son of a school teacher who taught Henry Lawson at Eurunderee School.

In 1922, James graduated from the University of Sydney with a Master of Arts, becoming a primary and later a high school teacher. From 1922-1924 he studied at Oxford University, graduating with a Diploma of Education. On returning to Australia he combined teaching and farming, eventually retiring from teaching in 1951. His teaching posts included working at Grafton High School (1942-1944).

James's first piece of published writing was a short story submitted to the Bulletin's Red Page in 1942. A collection, First Furrow, appeared in 1944, followed by Cookabundy Bridge and Other Stories (1946), and a novel, The Advancement of Spencer Button, in 1950.

James also wrote Lawson's Eurunderee, a tribute to Henry Lawson, and the poet's influence is evident in James's own work, which is frequently set against a rural landscape of teaching and farming. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature asserts that James' work demonstrates 'a wry, sardonic sense of humour and a capacity for sharp satire, understated realism and stylistic economy'.