Nathaniel Walter Swan

Nathaniel Walter Swan (or N. Walter Swan; 1834 – 31 July 1884) was an Irish-born Australian journalist and short-story writer.

Biography He was born in Monaghan, Ireland, and was said to be educated at the University of Glasgow. In the 1850s he travelled to Victoria in Australia, to take part in the gold rush in the colony; he had some success with a claim in Sandhurst. On his way to Melbourne after abandoning gold-digging, he met the writer Henry Kingsley, spending a few days with him shortly before Kingsley's return to England. He was also friends with Marcus Clarke and Henry Kendall.

Settling in Ararat, Swan became editor of the local paper, the Ararat Advertiser. In 1869 he moved to Stawell where he edited the Pleasant Creek News. He sometimes attended the Yorick Club in Melbourne. He wrote stories, some of which appeared in serial form in publications including The Sydney Mail and the Melbourne Australasian.

He wrote three books, one of which Luke Miver's Harvest was first published in 1879 in The Sydney Mail as the winning entry in a literary competition which won Swan a prize of £100, in addition two collections of his stories were published: Tales of Australian Life (London, 1875) and A Couple of Cups Ago, and other stories (Melbourne, 1885).