Alexander Harris was born in London, enlisting in the Guards at eighteen. In 1825 he deserted and fled to Australia where he worked as a cedar-getter and farmer. His early dissolute life was replaced by a deeply religious one while in Australia. In 1840 he returned to England and married Elizabeth Atkinson who had previously refused his proposal because of his irreligion. She died from tuberculosis five weeks after their marriage.
Following his wife's death, Harris began missionary work and wrote about his time in Australia. Writing with a mixture of romance and social history, Harris's works fall into the category of emigrant literature. His first and most successful book, Settlers and Convicts: or Recollections of Sixteen Years' Labour in the Australian Backwoods (1847) was published under the pseudonym 'An Emigrant Mechanic'. Several other works followed, including an autobiography that details his religious conversion (Testimony to the Truth, 1848) and an emigrant handbook on Port Stephens (A Guide to Port Stephens in New South Wales, 1849). Harris's works are highly regarded by social historians for their comprehensive and detailed accounts of early colonial life in Australia.
Harris married again, but the marriage failed and, in 1851, he moved to the United States of America and became an American citizen. He died in Canada in 1874.
