https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=John_Lang_%28writer%29John Lang (writer) - Revision history2026-08-18T13:50:21ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.43.6https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Lang_(writer)&diff=127158&oldid=prev>Citation bot: Alter: url. URLs might have been anonymized. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Abductive | Category:1816 births | via #UCB_Category 89/14692021-04-30T06:03:16Z<p>Alter: url. URLs might have been anonymized. | <a href="https://en.bharatpedia.org/wiki/BP:UCB" class="extiw" title="wp:UCB">Use this bot</a>. <a href="https://en.bharatpedia.org/wiki/BP:DBUG" class="extiw" title="wp:DBUG">Report bugs</a>. | Suggested by Abductive | <a href="/w/index.php?title=Category:1816_births&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Category:1816 births (page does not exist)">Category:1816 births</a> | via #UCB_Category 89/1469</p>
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'''John Lang''' (19 December 1816 – 20 August 1864) was an Australian lawyer and was Australia's first native born novelist.<ref name=ADB>[[John Earnshaw]], '[http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A050065b.htm Lang, John (1816 - 1864)]', ''[[Australian Dictionary of Biography]]'', Volume 5, [[Melbourne University Press|MUP]], 1974, pp. 58–59. Retrieved 8 Sep 2009</ref><br />
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==Early life and education==<br />
Lang was born at [[Parramatta, New South Wales|Parramatta]], Sydney, Australia, second and posthumous son of Walter Lang, merchant adventurer, and his wife Elizabeth, née Harris.<ref name=ADB /> Lang was educated at Sydney College under [[William Timothy Cape]]. Lang went to [[Cambridge University|Cambridge]] in March 1837 and, after qualifying as a barrister, returned to Australia.<ref name=ADB /><br />
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==Career==<br />
In 1842, at a public meeting, he seconded a motion proposed by [[William Wentworth]], that the Crown be petitioned to grant the colony a representative assembly. A few months later he went to India and was successful as a barrister, taking on high-profile clients such as the [[Rani Lakshmibai|Rani of Jhansi]] in her battles against the [[British East India Company]].<br />
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Lang became a journalist and in 1845 established a paper, the ''Mofussilite'', at [[Meerut]]. He also wrote some novels which appeared serially in the ''Mofussilite'' and in ''Fraser's Magazine''. These began to be published in book form in 1853, ''The Wetherbys'' and ''Too Clever by Half'' both 1853, followed by ''Too Much Alike'' (1854), ''The Forger's Wife'' (1855, said to be the first English-language detective novel),<ref>Interview with essayist Joe Leonard on Radio National program "The Bookshelf" compered by Kate Evans, 29 March 2020</ref> ''Captain Macdonald'' (1856), ''Will He Marry Her'' (1858), ''The Ex-Wife'' (1858), ''My Friend's Wife'' (1859), ''The Secret Police'' (1859),<ref>{{cite book|author=Lang, John|title=The Secret Police, Or, Plot and Passion|year=1859|publisher=Ward and Lock|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ba0BAAAAQAAJ}}</ref> and ''Botany Bay; or True Stories of the Early Days of Australia'' (1859). Some of these were very popular and were often reprinted, the twelfth edition of ''Too Clever by Half'' appearing in 1878. ''Botany Bay'' has been reprinted several times, sometimes under the titles of ''Clever Criminals'', or ''Remarkable Convicts''. ''Fisher's Ghost'' reprints 10 of the 13 stories of Botany Bay. Lang also published ''Geraldine, A Ballad'' in 1854, and in 1859 ''Wanderings in India and other Sketches'' reprinted from ''Household Words''. Lang visited London in 1859, and was for a short time at Calcutta where he issued the ''Optimist''. Lang died in the [[hill station]] of [[Mussoorie]], India, and is buried in Camel's Back Cemetery, which enjoys a wide vista of the Lower Western [[Himalaya]], which Lang loved greatly. His grave had been lost for almost a century until it was sought out and discovered by the writer [[Ruskin Bond]].<ref>Bond, Ruskin(2000). The Lamp is Lit, Penguin India.</ref><br />
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== References ==<br />
{{Reflist}}<br />
* {{Dictionary of Australian Biography|First=John|Last=Lang|shortlink=0-dict-biogL.html#lang1|accessdate=2009-09-08}}<br />
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100515040332/http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/5880088/john-lang-our-forgotten-indian-envoy.thtml Rory Medcalf, 'John Lang, our Forgotten Indian Envoy', [[The Spectator]]/Australia, 3 April 2010]<br />
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==External links==<br />
* {{Gutenberg author | id=5512}}<br />
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Lang |birth=1816 |death=1864}}<br />
* {{Librivox author |id=2376}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lang, John}}<br />
[[Category:1816 births]]<br />
[[Category:1864 deaths]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century Australian novelists]]<br />
[[Category:Australian male novelists]]<br />
[[Category:Australian lawyers]]<br />
[[Category:People from Meerut]]<br />
[[Category:19th-century male writers]]<br />
[[Category:Writers from Uttarakhand]]</div>>Citation bot