AustLit

'Marcus Steele, widely regarded as Australia's greatest novelist, short-story writer and poet, was born on 1 July 1864 in Newcastle, New South Wales. His father Peter, a carpenter, and mother, Elsie, were Scottish immigrants. Little is known of Steele's early life save that it was a difficult one, marked by dire poverty, and his parents' undemonstrative nature. Steele excelled at reading, writing and mathematics, and at ten years of age he won a scholarship to Sydney Grammar School, where he was in the same class as Banjo Paterson, though the two boys never became friends. The first of Steele's poems, a scrap of juvenilia called 'The Man from the Hunter River' (now sadly lost), dates from this time, as does his short story 'Wife of the Shepherd', which won first prize in a writing competition held by the school. Though the story was printed in the school newspaper, no copies are known to have survived.' (Abstract)