James Middleton Macdonald was the son of Donald Macdonald and Isabella Middleton. He graduated BA from the University of Melbourne (1877) and MA, University of Sydney (1879). Although describing himself as 'a real Australian' in his preface to Roll Up : a tale of the Eureka Riots, Ballarat, he went to England in the early 1880s and was ordained an Anglican clergyman in Salisbury in 1885. He then completed an MA at Oxford, where he was a chaplain from 1887-1890. In 1890 he was sent to India, where he remained until 1915, being chaplain at Cuttach and later Dum-Dum. During this period he conducted frequent chaplaincies in other countries, e.g. in 1909 he was in Italy, chaplain to the English community in Siena. He returned to Australia in 1915 or 1916 and was a vicar in Tasmania, firstly at Smithon and later at Ringarooma near Launceston. As well as his novels, he wrote Massilia-Carthago Sacrifice Tablets of the Worship of Baal in Facsimile (1897, translation), Briton Versus Boer (1900), and was joint author of Glimpses of India (1897). He edited the Indian Church News 1905-1912.
