George Farwell was born and educated in England. Dissatisfied with clerical work, he joined an expedition to the South Pacific in search of buried treasure. Arriving in Sydney in 1935 after the expedition failed to find treasure, Farwell took on a variety of jobs, including deckhand, casual wharf labourer and gold miner. He also began writing adventure stories for the Sydney Mail and acting in radio serials, initiating his career in the creative arts.
Farwell wrote for magazines, newspapers and radio, producing many stories, talks and documentaries for the ABC. He wrote more than twenty books, the first, Down Argent Street (1948), centred on Broken Hill, demonstrating his deep affection for the outback most apparent in Land of Mirage (1950) an account of his travels on the Birdsville Track.
Farwell was an active member of the Federation of Australian Writers and was President for one term in 1944. He also edited a number of periodicals, including New Australian Writing (1943-46), Australasian Book News and Library Journal (1946-48) and Air Travel (1949-51). During the 1950s he wrote for the Commonwealth News and Information Bureau and the Adelaide Advertiser. While in Adelaide he was the Public Relations Officer for the Adelaide Festival of Arts (1959-64).
George Farwell died in 1976, the same year that his autobiographical Rejoice in Freedom was published. His ashes were scattered on the Birdsville Track. A collection of his essays, Farwell Country, was published in 1977.
