A journalist who worked in both Sydney and Melbourne, Grosvenor Bunster contributed numerous short stories to the Australian Journal, among other periodicals.
According to his obituaries, he was the son of an army colonel, who first began work, relatively young, on a whaling vessel. After a short period of travel in India, he settled in Victoria, where he worked first as a bank clerk, before beginning his journalism career at George Collins Levey's Morning Herald.
His first known published work, 'Nobody's Child: How It Was Found in a Cable', appeared in the Australian Journal in 1867 as part of a series called 'Vagabond Sketches'. A novel, Henstone's Revenge, was published in 1896. Butler's stories ranged from adventure and travel to romance. He also wrote at least three theatrical works: The Belle of Woolloomooloo; Or, The Wooer, the Waitress and the Willian (1872) was a musical burlesque of H. T. Arnold's play The Belle of the Barley Mow (1867), Quarantine (1872) was a sketch, and Class (1878) was a three-act comedy drama, described in Australia on the Popular Stage as 'the most sophisticated Australian comedy of its period' (p.96).
