Jack McLaren

Jack McLaren (13 October 1884 – 16 May 1954) was an Australian novelist who wrote novels based on his life experiences and who was renowned for his "authenticity of background".

Life and work

Jack McLaren was the eldest son of Rev. John McLaren, Presbyterian minister, and his wife Mary. McLaren was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, but ran away from school at the age of 16. He worked as a cabin boy and seaman before landing in North Queensland in 1902, and for the next ten years worked a variety of jobs and travelled to Fiji, Java, New Guinea, Malaya and the Solomon Islands. By 1924 he was living in Northcote, Melbourne where he married fellow novelist, Ada Elizabeth Moore, née McKenzie. The couple moved to London in 1925 where McLaren continued his writing life, which included the publication of four autobiographical books in the 1920s and 30s. He broadcast and wrote scripts for the British Broadcasting Corporation and during World War II was in charge of the section of the Ministry of Information responsible for publicity about the Empire. Written in 1926, it describes a period of eight years from 1911 on Cape York, where McLaren set up a coconut plantation. It records the native wildlife as well as McLaren's interactions with a tribe of nomadic Indigenous Australians. McLaren's clearing the land and introducing the coconuts occasioned concern in the local Aboriginal people, causing McLaren to feel 'immoral'. My Crowded Solitude may have been influenced by Henry David Thoreau's Walden.