Doris Egerton Jones was the daughter of accountant John Elias Jones and his wife Emma Marie, née Fischer. When Jones was young, her family moved around the goldfields of Victoria and Western Australia. Her later education was at the Glenelg Public School and the Advanced School for Girls in Adelaide (1901-1905). At the age of 14 she wrote her first play, 'Ned Kelly, Bushranger,' and the following year her first book, Peter Piper.
Jones graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Arts in 1911 and although she studied art she was forced to give it up due to acute neuritis. She then began to study law, although at that time women were not allowed to practice in South Australia. She protested to the Premier, the Hon John Verran. Subsequently the Female Law Practitioner's Act, passed in 1911, provided for the admission of women to the Bar, but Jones did not complete her studies because of bad health.
Becoming a writer instead, she published five novels between 1913-18. She travelled to New Guinea on holidays, and used this experience to write The Coconut Planter (1916). Jones departed for London in 1918, and here she sold her first play, 'Uncle Buncle'. She married Reginald Callaghan, a clerk who had served with the Australian Imperial Force, and in 1922 they returned to Australia, living in Sydney. She had two plays professionally produced in 1923 and 1930.
After bringing up their three children Jones returned to writing, but as she was not able to find a publisher, she turned to other interests.
