Alan Moorehead was born in Melbourne, Australia. He was educated at Scotch College, with a BA from Melbourne University. He travelled to England in 1937 and became a renowned foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express. Writer, world traveller, biographer, essayist, journalist, Moorehead was one of the most successful writers in English of his day. He married Lucy Milner, who at the Daily Express in 1937 presided over a women’s page free of the patronising sentimentality which marked much writing for women at the time”.

During World War II he won an international reputation for his coverage of campaigns in the Middle East and Asia