In its issue of 17 June, 1899, The Clipper published entries from a competition run by The Bookfellow for the best quatrain on the subject 'Australia' (p. 6). Not to be outdone, The Clipper (observing with '"reasonable wrath" and modified delight, that Tasmania is not short of poets') reflected that the editors were 'unaware of a good quatrain having yet been built about our island.' The paper consequently offered a prize of 'any five shilling book of Australasian verse' for the best quatrain on Tasmania, noting that 'the subject may be treated historically, geologically, biologically, epigrammatically, or geographically, or with any other ally the writers choose; the one essential being that it must convey Tasmania's meaning to the world in four poetic lines ...'