MORE ABOUT ANTHONY'S BOOKS

Born in Melbourne in 1942, Anthony Hill was a newspaper journalist in Melbourne and Canberra  before moving with his family to a country village in NSW where they ran an antique shop for five years. The experience formed the basis of his first two books, The Bunburyists and Antique Furniture in Australia. For more info go to Early Books or click book covers on this page.

Anthony Hill’s first book for children, Birdsong, was published in 1988, followed in 1994 by his prize-winning novella The Burnt Stick illustrated by Mark Sofilas. The two combined again to produce Spindrift in 1996, and Forbidden in 2002. Between 1996 and 1999 Anthony  published The Grandfather Clock and his collection, Growing Up & Other Stories. For more info go to First Success or click book covers on this page.

For 10 years Anthony Hill was a speech writer for the Governor-General, until retiring to concentrate full-time on his own writing at the end of 1998. His biographical novel, Soldier Boy, about the youngest known Australian Anzac, was published in 2001 and won a NSW Premier’s Literary Award and a CBCA silver medal. It has since sold over 100,000 copies and Anthony has recently adapted it for the stage. The companion book Young Digger, appeared in 2002. It's about a French war orphan, Henri, adopted as a mascot by some Australian airmen and smuggled home in 1919. A new edition came out in 2016.

In March 2005 Penguin published Animal Heroes, a collection of 21 stories about the dogs, horses, pigeons, mascots and other animals that have served with Australia’s armed forces in peace and war from Gallipoli to the present. For more info go to Military Books or click book covers on this page.

Anthony has also written a number of animal stories.  The Shadow Dog illustrated by Andrew McLean is the story of Anthony's own dog Sebastian. Harriet illustrated by Coral Tulloch, recreates the life of a 175-year-old Galapagos tortoise who lived for many years in Queensland. And Lucy’s Cat and the Rainbow Birds, illustrated by Jane Tanner, is about belling the family's own cat. For more info go to Animal Tails or click the book covers on this page.

The voyage from youth to adulthood is the theme of many Anthony's books. River Boy,  illustrated by Donna Rawlins, is a steam-boat adventure for young readers. Part of the National Museum of Australia's 'Making Tracks' series, it was very much the practise piece for  Anthony's  historical novel Captain Cook's Apprentice about one of the boys who sailed on HMB  Endeavour. Written with the assistance of a grant from the Australia Council, the book has been widely praised and received a NSW Premier's Literary Award. A new edition was published in 2018 for the 250th anniversary of Cook's voyage in HMB Endeavour.

In recent years Anthony has been writing mainly for adult readers. His first book in this genre was The Story of Billy Young, a teenage POW in Changi, Sandakan and Outram Road prisons, which became a best-seller. It was followed in 2016 by For Love of Country, a true Australian family story of love, war the the ultimate sacrifice, about a soldier-settler family in Canberra between the First and Second World Wars.

Anthony followed that in 2021 with another historical novel The Last Convict, about the last-known transported convict to survive in Australia. He died in 1938 on the eve of the Second World War. In March 2023 Anthony published The Investigators, about Matthew Flinders and the circumnavigation of Australia 1801-03 in HMS Investigator, as a companion book to Captain Cook's Apprentice. All his military and historical novels have been published with Penguin Random House.

In late 1920 Anthony moved back home to Melbourne from Canberra with his wife where he completed his last two novels. Since then, in need of a change, he has been writing for stage – an early love, and with some success. His first completed work is a full-length dramatisation of his novel Soldier Boy.  Soldier Boy the play was accepted by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and put on the VCE 2025 Unit 3 Drama Playlist. Anthony is now (2025) working on a dramatisation of the companion book Young Digger.

It is not Anthony's first theatre work. When living in the country he wrote Rats, a satire based on the Pied Piper of Hamelin, performed by Yass Repertory players. In 1988 he wrote the libretto  Nganbra, A Canberra Canticle, composed by Judith Clingan for the Australian Bi-centenary; and in 1991 Spirit of Place, original music by Charlie Chan, for the 150th anniversary of S t Johns Church in Canberra (unpublished). 

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