My Crowded Solitude

   My Crowded Solitude is the story of Jack McLaren who went ashore at Cape York (Australia) to establish a coconut plantation in 1911. The book traces his encounters with Aborigines who were still living as they had in the stone age and his discovery that life in the wilderness can be rich and fulfilling.

John (Jack) McLaren (1884-1954) was born on 13 October 1884 at  Melbourne, Australia; the eldest of five children. McLaren entered Scotch College on 8 October 1896, but ran away four years later and carried a swag for a year. He then worked for ten months as cabin boy and seaman on a windjammer which sailed from Adelaide to Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and back to Newcastle, New South Wales.

In 1911, tired of wandering, McLaren landed  on the west coast of Cape York. Alone except for the tribe of Aborigines whom he paid to work for him, he built a house and established a coconut plantation.  Some of his experience on Cape York are recounted in My Crowded Solitude (London, 1926).

 His literary reputation must rest on his autobiographies, and principally on My Crowded Solitude. This work offers anecdotes and insights about his rare visitors, and especially about his Aboriginal companions. McLaren observes the tribe from the platform of European civilization, and derives humour and occasionally satire from contrasting expectations and values. This theme is constant in his writings, all of which reflect the journeys between civilization and the wild which prevailed in his life and gave it its particular quality.