Paul Wenz was born in 1869 into a wealthy French wool-buying family. He first visited Australia in 1892 and decided to settle in New South Wales in 1898. He married an Australian, Harriet Dunne, and took up a large property on the Lachlan River between Forbes and Cowra. Before the First World he published a number of short stories written in French and set mostly in Australia; in 1908 his only work written in English. Diary of a New Chum, was published in Melbourne. He visited Europe regularly and served as a liaison officer in France during the war. From 1919 to 1931 he published four novels, some memoirs and more short stories, all of which were published in Paris. He became more involved in Australian literary life during this period, but because he wrote in French he remained unknown to all but a few until his death in Forbes in 1939.
