Rolf Boldrewood

Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales (Dodo Press) Rolf Boldrewood

Thomas Alexander Browne (1826-1915) was an Australian writer, who sometimes published under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood and who is best known for his novel Robbery Under Arms (1882). Browne spent some twenty-five years as a squatter and about the same time as a government official, but his third career as author extended over forty years. In 1865 he wrote two articles on pastoral life in Australia for the Cornhill Magazine, and he also began to contribute articles and serial stories to the Australian weeklies. One of these, Ups and Downs: A Story of Australian Life, was published in book form in London in 1878. It was re-issued as The Squatter's Dream in 1890. Other novels appeared in quick succession, including The Miner's Right: A Tale of the Australian Goldfields (1890), A Sydney-Side Saxon (1891), Nevermore (1892), A Modern Buccaneer (1894), The Sphinx of Eaglehawk (1895), The Crooked Stick (1895), The Sealskin Coat (1896), My Run Home (1897), Plain Living (1898), A Romance of Canvas Town and Other Stories (1898), War to the Knife (1899), Babes in the Bush (1900), and The Last Chance (1905).