Variously called Australia’s first modern poet, the father of modern Australian poetry, and the master craftsman of them all, Kenneth Slessor continues to be admired in Australia and abroad for a comparatively small body of work. Yet one of his critics, Herbert C. Jaffa, has said that some of [Slessor’s] poems are among the most important written in English in modern literature. Backless Betty from Bondi was first published in 1930 as a poem to the flappers (modern gals) who moved to Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Introduced by Julian Croft this is its first publication in paperback.