Louis Becke 1855-1913

George Lewis “Louis” Becke (1855-1913) was born in Queensland but moved when young first to Sydney and then to San Francisco. Still only sixteen, he sailed as a stowaway to Samoa, where he met the notorious buccaneer and swindler "Bully" Hayes. Becke was commissioned to sail a ketch to the Marshall Islands to be handed over to Hayes for sale to a local chief. The vessel was wrecked and Becke was tried in Brisbane but acquitted. After many years of travel and trading in the Pacific he returned to Sydney in 1892 and took up writing.

His short stories were published in The Bulletin by its editor J.F. Archibald and in other weekly newspapers and literary magazines, being later collated into book form. Always needing money, Becke sold his books outright to publisher T. Fisher Unwin or his agent, A.P. Watt, some being co-authored with Walter James Jefferey.

In 1896 Becke moved to England, where he became famous as an authority on the South Seas. In 1901 he was living in Ireland, moving later to France, Jamaica and the United States, but by 1909 was back in Sydney writing for The Bulletin. He died in 1913 (1).

(1) Nat Gould: The Biography by Tom Askey (2017) page 79.