Frank Fowler (writer)

Frank Fowler
Born	Francis Edmund Town Fowler 1833 London, England
Died	1863 Kensington, London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Author, Journalist

Francis Edmund Town Fowler (1833 – 22 August 1863) was a British-born author and journalist who later played a significant role in the early development of Australia's literary culture. He is best known for his book Southern Lights and Shadows (London, 1859), and for founding and editing Australia's first literary journal, The Month.

Frank Fowler was born in London to a publishing family. He worked as a journalist for The Times and reported for two sessions in the House of Commons. In 1855-57 he visited New South Wales and joined the staff of the Sydney Empire and also wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald. He co-founded and edited Australia’s first literary journal, The Month, and regularly addressed the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts on poetry, theatre, literature, politics and the importance of developing a uniquely Australian culture. His lectures were published as Texts for Talkers (London, 1860). He wrote the preface to Australian Musical Album (Sydney, 1857), and reviewed various performers, including the visiting French baritone Emile Coulon. Fowler also wrote a play, 'Eva', which was performed in Sydney in 1856.

Frank Fowler was a member of the Stenhouse Circle, a close-knit group of colonial writers and intellectuals in the 1850s and 1860s, which included Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse, Richard Rowe, Charles Harpur, Henry Kendall, Joseph Moore, James Lionel Michael, Henry Halloran, William Bede Dalley, professors John Woolley and Charles Badham, and Sir Henry Parkes, the ‘Father of the Australian Federation’. Fowler clashed with Parkes following his critical review of Parkes’s poem "Stolen Moments" (1842).

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