George Augustus Sala was an English journalist who worked for several periodicals, most notably the London Daily Telegraph. For a time he was the best-known figure of the London newspaper scene. Widely travelled, he lectured and toured Australia in 1885. He coined the term 'Marvellous Melbourne'. During his Australian tour he wrote a series of thirty-two articles for the Daily Telegraph entitled 'The Land of the Golden Fleece'; these were reprinted in the Argus, the Australasian and the Sydney Morning Herald.
After his return to England he published The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala (1895), which contains a few pages of Australian impressions, but he never completed his projected book on the colonies. Sala's stories, 'The Australian Night's Entertainments', purporting to be 'related by convicts at the Antipodes while lying in their hammocks after sunset', were published in the journal Chat in 1848. Marcus Clarke is said to have been influenced by Sala's journalistic attitude and style. (Source: Oxford Companion to Australian Literature)
