Ralph Stock was an English writer, who in addition to travel books, published three novels and four volumes of short stories. He visited Australia on a number of occasions during his overseas travels. For example, in 1901 Stock made his way across Canada and the South Sea islands working on ranches and plantations and then worked his passage to Sydney as a steward. These experiences were recorded in The Confessions of a Tenderfoot. In The Chequered Cruise Stock (referred to in this narrative as Freckles) recounts his 1914 voyage in a small vessel with a friend referred to only as 'The Nut' and his sister Mabel Stock (The Spinster).
Stock was invalided to England after war service in France. With his sister, Mabel. M. Stock (q.v.), and a friend he sailed for the South Seas via the Panama Canal. This journey was the subject of The Cruise of the Dream Ship, his most successful work. His sister recorded her account in The Log of a Woman Wanderer (1923).
Stock was better known for his short stories than his larger works. He contributed to the Captain and World Wide Magazine. Most of his stories are set in Fiji and the surrounding islands, but some are set in Queensland (where Stock was the absentee owner of a pineapple farm), Thursday Island, Papua and Hawaii. Stock's protagonists are predominately white men - traders, planters and beachcombers. According to Morris Miller they are 'world-wanderers who find solace for their loneliness in island contacts'. Miller describes Stock's style as 'plain and matter-of-fact' and revealing of a preference for 'easy-moving dialogue' and 'light graphic touches' rather than narrative.
Some of Stock's stories where adapted into screenplays. He co-wrote several films in the period 1930 to 1950.
Stock has been thought of as an Australian author, perhaps on account of Miller (incorrectly) stating that he was born in New South Wales. In fact, Stock seems to have spent only brief periods in Australia.
