Henry Handel Richardson: A Life
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 6/29/2004
EAN 9780521840552, ISBN10: 0521840554
Hardcover, 356 pages, 23.4 x 15.6 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
Henry Handel Richardson is celebrated for her classic Australian novels The Getting of Wisdom and The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, yet her own life-story is still to be fully told. This enthralling 2004 book is a complete biography of this enigmatic Australian literary icon. Drawing on previously unavailable records, the book sheds light on Richardson's unconventional life. Beginning with her traumatic childhood, then tracing in detail the largely unknown story of the eleven formative years Richardson spent on the Continent, the book goes on to explore the personal and social forces that moved her during her long years as a London intellectual, concluding with her last ordeal as a frail spectator in the front-line of the Battle of Britain.
Prologue
1. Blood lines
2. The whirlpool of destiny
3. Trauma and its fictions
4. Whatever happened at PLC?
5. Love and music in Leipzig
6. 'A failure all round'
7. The Continent to the rescue
8. Reappraising England
9. A denizen of many worlds
10. Winds of change
11. Blackout
12. Towards the next room.