Written by Phillip Butterss, lecturer in Australian Literature at the University of Adelaide, and illustrated by Ron Edwards.

A.B. Patterson is usually acknowledged as the first collector of Australian folk song through his important edition, Old Bush Songs, but this book was actually preceded by a collection published some eleven years earlier in the Brisbane weekly, The Queenslander. The songs were published under the heading 'Songs of the Bush', in a column that ran for a little over 6 months.

This book, Songs of the Bush contains the songs that made up that first collection back in the 1890s, as well as original comments from readers of The Queenslander including varying versions of the songs.