A. G. Stephens, journalist, author, literary critic, editor, publisher and fervent Australian nationalist was born and educated in Toowoomba, Queensland. His journalistic career began with his apprenticeship to a Sydney printer in 1880 and included editorship of the provincial newspapers the Gympie Miner (1888 to 1890) and the Cairns Argus (1891 to 1892), and sub-editorship of the radical Brisbane weekly The Boomerang. He travelled overseas and worked in Fleet Street (1892 to 1893) sending back to Australia syndicated articles which were later published as A Queenslander's Travel Notes (1905).

Returning to Australia in 1894, he joined the Bulletin as a sub-editor. Between 1894 and 1906 he developed and edited its major literary section, the "Red Page", emerging as a most significant and forceful influence in the development of a maturing Australian literature. During this time he was involved in editing and publishing the work of many important Australian writers and in expanding the Bulletin's publishing activities which included the publication of classics such as Steele Rudd's On Our Selection (1899) and Joseph Furphy's Such is Life as well as the Bulletin anthologies: The Bulletin Reciter (1901), The Bulletin Story Book (1901) and A Southern Garland (1904).

Stephens left the Bulletin in 1906 and, apart from a brief period (1907 to 1909) as assistant editor of the Wellington Evening Post in New Zealand, he devoted his time to production of his literary journal The Bookfellow and associated publishing ventures. When The Bookfellow finally ceased publication in 1925 Stephens continued to write and advise other authors although his influence had steadily declined. His own published works include early pamphlets on Queensland politics, volumes of poetry, Oblation (1902) and The Pearl and the Octopus (1911), a novel, Bill's Idees (1913), two plays, An Australian Flower Masque (1924) and Capturing the Bushranger (1924) as well as texts and anthologies for Australian schools and critical studies of Christopher Brennan and Henry Kendall (1928, 1933). Stephens died at St Luke's Hospital, Darlinghurst in 1933; an obituary written by Mary Gilmore was entitled "The Last of the Giants".