Louis Stone

Born in Leicester, England, in 1871 and baptized William Lewis, he moved with his family to Australia as a boy, first to Brisbane and then to Sydney. He trained as a teacher, studied arts at the University of Sydney, and spent years working in schools before writing fiction in earnest.

His best-known novel, Jonah (1911), drew on close observation of life in Sydney's inner suburbs and became notable for its realistic picture of urban, working-class Australia. He also wrote Betty Wayside and several plays, though his stage ambitions met with less success.

Later critics have seen him as an important early novelist of city life in Australia. His career was affected by recurring illness, and he died in Randwick, New South Wales, in 1935.