Catherine Edith Macauley Martin

Who was Catherine Edith Macauley Martin?

Catherine Edith Macauley Martin was an Australian novelist who used the pseudonyms M. C., Mrs Alick MacLeod or anonymous.

Martin was born in the Isle of Skye in 1847 or early in 1848. Her father, whose name was Mackay, brought her to South Australia when a child, and in 1874 she was living at Mount Gambier. In that year she published at Melbourne a volume of poems The Explorers and other Poems. The book was credited to 'M.C.' and her name remained unknown to the public. She came to Adelaide and did journalistic work, including a serial story, Bohemian Born. For a period she was a clerk in the Education Department. In 1890 she published anonymously An Australian Girl, a novel which was favourably reviewed and in 1891 went into a second edition. This was followed in 1892 by The Silent Sea, published under the pseudonym of "Mrs Alick MacLeod".

In 1906 appeared The Old Roof Tree: Letters of Isbel to her Half-brother, a series of essays in letter-form. Some are supposed to be written from London, others from a cathedral town, while others describe a tour on the continent. In 1923 appeared The Incredible Journey, by C. E. M. Martin, the story of an Aboriginal woman's journey across desert country to recover her son.