For the Term of His Natural Life Book I (Edition2023)

Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke FRSA was an English-born Australian novelist, journalist, poet, editor, librarian, and dramatist. He is well known for his 1874 novel For the Term of His Natural Life, on Australia's convict system, which is widely recognized as an Australian literary classic. It has been adapted into numerous plays, films, and folk operas. Marcus Clarke was born at 11 Leonard Place Kensington, London, the only son of London barrister William Hislop Clarke and Amelia Elizabeth Matthews Clarke, who died when he was four years old. Marcus Clarke attended Highgate School (1858-1962), where he studied alongside Gerard Manley Hopkins, Cyril Hopkins, and E.H. Coleridge. Clarke's eloquence drew Hopkins' attention, prompting Hopkins to describe him as a "kaleidoscopic, parti-coloured, harlequinesque, thaumatropic Being":30 Clarke struggled to focus on his coursework and was punished by losing the poetry award in his senior year. On the one hand, he was regarded as charming and clever, but also as pampered, egotistical, and aimless, which could be traced in part to his father's Bohemian upbringing and the novels he read frequently.