Long worked as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald (1948-1959) and the Daily Telegraph (1959-1967) before becoming Publicity Officer for Macquarie University (1967-1980). He published three crime novels and contributed to crime fiction anthologies.
Married to Joan Long, a well renowned scriptwriter, producer and director, he co-published with her The Pictures That Moved : A Picture History of the Australian Cinema 1896-1929 (1982). He edited Edward Lyle Penn's recollections, The Picture Show Man (1977).
He was also a musicologist and an authority on the music of Daniel Bacheler, the subject of his MA thesis at the University of Sydney in 1971. He edited and transcribed selections of work for the lute by Bacheler, by Francis Long and by Francis Cutting.
Martin Long's brother Gavin Long, a journalist and historian, wrote three volumes of the official history of Australia in the Second World War, and his daughter Alexandra (q.v) is a novelist and short story writer.
