romantic novelist best known for his Robbery Under Arms (1888) and A Miner's Right (1890), both exciting and realistic portrayals of pioneer life in Australia.

Taken to Australia as a small child, Boldrewood was educated there and then operated a large farm in Victoria for some years. He later worked in the New South Wales and Victoria goldfields as a police magistrate and goldfields commissioner. Adopting a pseudonym, he first wrote short stories, then composed his memoirs (Old Melbourne Memories, 1884), and finally wrote about 20 novels between 1878 and 1906.