The Australian poet, C.J. Dennis, had great success in Australia during World War I with his verse novels, "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke" (1915), and "The Moods of Ginger Mick" (1916). The first tells of an urban ruffian with a heart of gold who marries and becomes a father and a farmer in Melbourne, Australia, shortly before the start of World War I in 1914. The second is the story of another urban ruffian, and good friend of The Bloke, who enlists in the Australian Army, and dies in the early battles at Gallipoli in 1915.