Australia's Trail-Blazing First Novelist: John Lang Australia's Trail-Blazing First Novelist: John Lang
A Shot of History

Australia's Trail-Blazing First Novelist: John Lang

    • 13,99 €
    • 13,99 €

Publisher Description

'Writer, journalist, barrister, larrikin'

Who was the first Australian novelist?

John Lang, born in a Parramatta pub in 1816 with the convict ‘stain’ upon him, was a singular character. The first native-born person to have a novel published, he was also a newspaperman, a classical scholar and translator, barrister, celebrity, jailbird … enigma. He was hugely energetic, capable and original, but he also had his demons. 

A larrikin polymath who refused to be bound by convention, Lang didn’t just want his allotted portion – he wanted all of it. He got a lot of it, too, but not the chalice of immortality. 

Lang was a serial pioneer. In literature, he also wrote the first ‘detective novel’ in English, the first convict-system satire, the first Indian travelogue by an Australian, and he created the template for the bush novel. In journalism, he was the first Australian to launch and run a newspaper overseas. And in law, he was the only barrister to ever defeat the mighty East India Company in an Indian courtroom. 

So why have we never heard of him? 

This long-overdue biography explores answers to this revealing question as it tracks Lang’s rise from those humble beginnings to fortune and fleeting fame. Author Sean Doyle tells the riveting story of Lang’s remarkable life and times across three continents in the age of Empire, when the modern world was young …

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2024
3 January
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
224
Pages
PUBLISHER
Big Sky Publishing
SIZE
1.3
MB
Harry The Bully Blocker Harry The Bully Blocker
2021
Quality Management in Forensic Science Quality Management in Forensic Science
2018
Synthesizing the Vedanta Synthesizing the Vedanta
2006
Devil Been Walkabout Tonight Devil Been Walkabout Tonight
2024
The Killer Bees The Killer Bees
2024
Kokoda Legend Kokoda Legend
2024
Death on Bloody Ridge Death on Bloody Ridge
2024
Assassination of the Butcher of Prague Assassination of the Butcher of Prague
2023
The Eureka Stockade The Eureka Stockade
2023