Co-founder of the contentious counterculture publication Oz, Richard Neville, died on Sunday at the age of 74. He died with his wife Julie Clarke Neville and daughters Lucy and Angelica by his bedside at his home in Northern New South Wales, The Guardian reported. His wife posted on Facebook that Neville "has gone on to his next adventure". He died from Alzheimer's disease, according to BBC.

The Australian writer and his journalist wife co-authored the 1979 biography on Charles Sobhraj, a serial killer accused of murdering Western backpackers across Asia in the 1970s. The experience was a tortuous for Neville, who felt that the story was an antithesis of counterculture, according to an obituary in The Guardian.

Neville started Oz with his university students – artist Martin Sharp and Richard Walsh – to oppose the conservatism that prevailed on the issues of abortion, censorship, and homosexuality in Australia in the 1960s. The magazine's co-founders were tried, convicted and sentenced by the Australian justice system for printing the "obscene publication", but they were soon acquitted on appeal after the public rose in solidarity with their cause.

The biographer relocated to London where his newly-launched publication drew the ire of the United Kingdom's court, which tried him and two of his co-editors for "corrupting the morals of children". The trio was jailed but released on appeal later.

He documented his life's story in his popular memoir Hippie Hippie Shake, which was the basis for a film that never hit the cinema screens. Prominent Australian barrister Geoffrey Robertson told The Guardian, "Those of us privileged to have played against power alongside him will remember the warmest and most generous of friends, a man with a deep moral vision and, when it came to the crunch, the courage of his convictions.” Robertson had helped Neville fight his legal battles.