Ambrose Pratt
Ambrose Goddard Hesketh Pratt (1874-1944) was an Australian writer born into a cultivated family in Forbes, NSW. The third of seven children of a well-connected physician, he was educated at St Ignatius' College, Riverview and Sydney Grammar School, with private tutors in French and German and the manly arts of boxing, riding, fencing and shooting. After abandoning his studies in medicine he took up law and once qualified as a solicitor he rose to admission to the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1897. However, this life did not suit him and he chose a more adventurous path, including working on a Pacific trading steamer and as a Queensland drover. He then travelled to England where he began writing novels and stories, and embarked on a career in journalism with the Daily Mail, returning to Australia in 1905 to join The Age as a journalist. In 1918 he became founding editor and part-owner of the Australian Industrial and Mining Standard and was involved in companies mining in Malaya and Siam. On his retirement from journalism he became involved with keeping Australian fauna in the Melbourne Zoological Gardens, was president of the Zoological and Acclimatization Society of Victoria from 1921-36, and later vice-chairman of the Zoological Society of Victoria. He was a proponent of the Ghan railway to Alice Springs, riding in the VIP carriage on the inaugural journey, and in 1933 founded the League of Youth which encouraged citizenship and love of nature. His fiction frequently focussed on criminal outsiders, and in addition to his 30-odd novels he also wrote a number of non-fiction works. This novel was first published in 1910 and includes four full-page illustrations and a facsimile of the original cover. Please note that it was not possible to reproduce the illustrations in colour in this reprint. 3
