author
Charles Rowcroft
d. 1856
An early novelist of colonial Australia, he turned his own experiences as a settler into fiction about emigrant life and the bush. His best-known work is valued for capturing some of the tensions and rough realities of Van Diemen’s Land.
1 Audiobook
Vandiemenin maa
by Theodor Dielitz, Charles Rowcroft
About the author
Born in London in 1798, Charles Rowcroft later went to Van Diemen’s Land, where he became a pastoralist and was involved in colonial public life. Those years gave him firsthand material that would shape his writing.
He is best known for Tales of the Colonies, a novel that drew on colonial experience and became one of the early fictional portrayals of Australian settler life and bushranging. His work is often noted for its strong sense of place and for showing the hardships, ambitions, and conflicts of life in the colonies.
Rowcroft later returned to Britain and also served in a diplomatic post, being appointed the first British consul to Cincinnati. He died at sea on August 23, 1856.