- Born
- 19 December 1816
Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia - Died
- 20 August 1864
Mussoorie, India
Summary
Lang was born in Parramatta, New South Wales and educated in Sydney at Cape's School and Sydney College. He travelled to England in 1837 and studied law at Cambridge, returning to Sydney where he was admitted to the Supreme Court as a barrister. In 1842 he left for India, where he practised at the Calcutta Bar and founded the influential newspaper, The Mofussilite. Some of his novels were serialised in its pages. Lang later spent a few years in England in the 1850s where he contributed to Charles Dickens' Household Words, All the Year Round, Fraser's Magazine and various newspapers. Lang is best known in Australia for his novels Lucy Cooper: an Australian Tale (1846) and The Forger's Wife (1855) and his collection of short sketches and stories called Botany Bay or True Tales of Early Australia (1859). He died and was buried in Mussoorie in northern India.