"Who is Arthur Upfield, the author of those remarkable murder mysteries set in odd corners of Australia and featuring a half-aborigine sleuth wth the name of Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte? Innumerable readers must have asked themselves that question without getting a fuller answer than the back of a book jacket provides. Here is the book that gives a detailed dossier on Upfield, compiled, furthermore, with the cheerful collaboration of the subject himself.
Arthur William Upfield is an Englishman by birth, the son of a Gosport draper. At fourteen he had written a long novel about a voyage to Mars, but had signally failed to show evidence of more respectable qualities. Soon it was agreed between Arthur and his father that he should try his luck in Australia. After a short spell as a waiter in Adelaide, Upfield felt drawn towards the Interior. In those days, in the heart of Australia, there were three great slave-masters – Red Gold, John Barleycorn and Wandering Millie, or, in other words, gold, drink and wanderlust. It was Wandering Millie who got her hooks into Arthur: in turn he became boundary-rider, offside-driver, cattle-drover, opal-gouger, rabbit-trapper, vermin fence patroller and manager of a camel station, drifting through the strange terrains and into the unusual company which were later to reappear so colourfully in his books.
Follow My Dust! shadows the famous mystery writer step by step through his early footloose and fancy-free career. How he was persuaded to take up writing again, how he unwittingly provided a real murderer witha 'foolproof' method of disposing of a body, and who was the original on whom the character Napoleon Bonaparte was based, are further mysteries which this unconventional and unusual biography will clear up." - from the jacket

"This is the only complete biography of Arthur Upfield, written by a woman who apparently knew him well (he refers to her in Twentieth Century Authors as "Partner Jessica"). The book tells us a great deal about Upfield and the wandering life he led, but it is apt to let one down on specifics such as dates and names of books, so is rather irritating as a source book. But for want of anything better it is useful reading for the Upfield fan." – from "The Armchair Detective"

Printed by Heinemann, London in 1957.