Cyril Hopkins Marcus Clarke

Cyril Hopkins, brother of Gerard Manley Hopkins, was a close friend of Clarke and draws on memories of their schooldays together in Highgate and Clarke's letters from Australia, for this biography.

Hopkins gives a fascinating picture of the mercurial immigrant's ups and downs as he moves from banking to jackarooing, before emerging as a controversial journalist. Clarke's career as theatre critic, bon vivant, librarian and author of the classic novel His Natural Life is vividly and movingly captured. Equally present are the bustling and variegated character of a colonial city, the rugged outback mining towns, and the vast bush, little understood by the new colonial society.