Life on the West Island - The colony’s first novelist

A recent edition of the ABC’s Late Night Live outlined the fascinating story of John Lang, who was probably the West Island’s first published novelist, when his two-volume story was released in London in 1836. That novel, entitled Violet; or the Danseuse: A Portraiture of Human Passions and Character, tells the story of a young woman trying to become a ballet dancer. It encompasses family expectations, rigid social constraints and romance, all in a very 19th-century English way. It sounds unremarkable, and not particularly colonial, but this text is very likely the first novel by a West Island-born author.

The ABC reported that researchers believe it was written by a man named John Lang, a brilliant but flawed colonial Australian. Lang's life, from his early years in Sydney, to living in the heart of the British Empire in London, then gaining national prominence in India, featured a long list of firsts. "Lang was an incredible guy; full of self-belief, full of talent, full of capability – but he was also his own worst enemy," according to Sean Doyle, author of Australia's Trail-Blazing First Novelist: John Lang. Doyle says “he is a figure who has been too long forgotten" by West Islanders.

The records show that John George Lang was born in 1816 inside the Freemason's Arms Hotel in Parramatta, in the fledgling colony of New South Wales. Lang's maternal grandfather was John Harris, who was part of a very small group of Jewish people transported on the First Fleet. He had been sent half a world away for stealing eight silver spoons. Lang's father died before he was born, so when John was two years old, his mother Elizabeth decided to leave her two young children in the Parramatta pub and go to England to find a husband. Doyle says that given her convict roots, there were few chances of a good match in the colony. Sure enough, Elizabeth returned to Sydney two years later with a new, wealthier husband. This improved the family's lot and, critically, meant Lang was able to get a good education. He went to the best school in the city — Sydney College — and he excelled.

He showed a great facility for languages, especially Latin. The young student fell in love with the Roman classics. In his final year of high school, he translated Horace's First Satire. School principal William Cape was so impressed with this translation, he had it printed and published. That is the first translation of a classic in Australia - so he was a golden boy.

After school, Lang gained a job in a Sydney law firm, and soon had his poems published in colonial newspapers. His novel Violet was printed anonymously in London in 1836 and achieved considerable success, although it was never published on the West Island.

Some characters in the book are very similar to figures from Lang's life, including the male protagonist D'Arcy, who has strong echoes of the powerful colonial identity William Wentworth, a lawyer, writer and political leader. Doyle says that this created problems. There were concerns from the publisher, perhaps from Lang himself too, that the portrait of D'Arcy, which was not particularly flattering, was a little too close to the real-life Wentworth. That's the reason why it did not appear in Australia, and why it was published anonymously.

Although Lang was on the verge of becoming famous, his quirky humour and tendency to play the “wild colonial boy” constantly got him into hot water. He had travelled to England to study law at Cambridge but was expelled after only six months because of his antics. However, he completed law studies at Middle Temple and was admitted to the bar. He chose to return to practise law in New South Wales but was soon in trouble again.

Doyle reports that Lang was part of the emancipist movement in Sydney, which at that time meant fighting for the rights of people with convict backgrounds. But at one meeting, Lang's star faded. There were 800 present, and Lang was one of only four set to speak. When it was his turn, he launched into a bizarre oration about the shortcomings of colonial representation — the topic of the meeting — and personally mocked high-profile emancipists. His outburst made the newspapers.

Lang also picked fights with people in the legal world. In one instance, he wrote a muddled attack on a high-profile attorney in a letter to a newspaper. It was under a pseudonym. But Lang was exposed as the author and humiliated. His convict lineage meant he was discriminated against by many in the Sydney establishment, but he also didn't make it any easier for himself with his rash actions and behaviour. These quarrels ultimately drove Lang from the colony, never to return.

In 1842, the 27-year-old Lang, his wife and two children sailed to Calcutta, which was the capital of British India. Tough conditions meant his family only lasted a few years there before moving to England, but Lang stayed in India on-and-off over two decades. He became a successful barrister. His most famous case was defending Rani Lakshmibai — the rani, or queen, of the princely state of Jhansi and well-known Indian freedom fighter — in court against the British East India Company. For this, he remains more well-known in India than Australia, even appearing as a character in Indian films about this time. In fact, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the West Island in 2014, he gave the Prime Minster several gifts dedicated to Lang.

Doyle says that Lang continued to write, being the first to publish an Australian bush novel (Legends of Australia); the first to write a supernatural story published in Australia (Fisher's Ghost); and the first person in the world to write a full-length detective novel in English (The Forger's Wife).

Lang also loved the Australian bush and wrote movingly about the beauty and grandeur of the countryside, in stark contrast with British writers in the colony who spoke with horror of its dangers and the “ghostly and skeletal” gum trees. In his later years, Lang reflected on the errors of his youth, specifically his outburst at the emancipist meeting, which played a major role in his self-exile from Australia.

He wrote 20 novels over his lifetime, along with several non-fiction books. He died in 1864, aged 47, and is buried in India. His life was marked with both achievement and controversary, but he deserves recognition as the West Island’s first novelist.