AustLit

Born in England, Lester Basil Sinclair came to Australia as a teenager from New Zealand, where he had joined a circus. He did service at Gallipoli and composed patriotic and war songs, Lester Sinclair's Airforce Song Album (1940). His second wife, Ellen, was food editor for the Australian Women's Weekly for 20 years, and was a prolific author in her own right, chiefly of cook books. She was probably also involved in the writing of the John Mystery books.

''John Mystery' was an Australian children's publishing phenomenon. He operated from a castle in Sydney, 'Adventure Castle'. His books were cheaply produced paperbacks published in Sydney from the late 1930's to the 1940's. The books were printed on poor quality or even yellow paper. There are illustrations throughout in black and white and colour. The front covers always had an illustrated coloured wraparound. Several stories were published in each issue. All stories were original with an Australian context. John Mystery books were extremely popular during the War. They were distributed mainly through the major department stores.'

A 'Dear Cobber' letter appeared on the inside of the back cover in some issues. John Mystery wrote to his readers, often commenting on the progress of the war and encouraging his young readers to write to him. Mystery's letters began 'Dear Cobber' and ended with 'I shall be looking for your letters! Yours merrily, John Mystery. My address is - John Mystery, Adventure Castle, Sydney. That's all you need to put!'

The State Library of Victoria holds the Sinclair family archive dealing with John Mystery.

Source: Mary Azzarito, 'The Ken Pound Collection: A Rare Treasure of Children's Books', http://conferences.alia.org.au/libtec2003/papers/azzarito.html
Sighted: 12/12/2006