Laura Murrell Laura Murrell i(A33135 works by) (a.k.a. L. E. Murrell; Miss Laura Murrell; Laura Edith Murrell)
Also writes as: Karuna
Born: Established: 1860 Victoria, ; Died: Ceased: 1938 North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Wild Craven's Daughter. An Australian Novel Karuna , 1886 single work novel Beautifully written and realised tale. Kitty Craven and Beatrice Rodier, young girls sharing factory sewing work and a room in Melbourne, become very close friends. Kitty is the daughter of a drunken dishonest racehorse trainer and Beatrice the orphaned daughter of a scapegrace father and genteel mother, still hopeful of contact from her mother's family. After an idyllic day together Beatrice falls ill and eventually dies, and Kitty is bereft. When approached by an agent of Beatrice's uncle, she takes on Beatrice's identity to evade her father and when she is adopted as John Heydon's niece at Yalanga station finds it hard to admit to the change. She admires and loves his wife Amy and is herself loved by a neighbouring 'colonial experience' youth, Malleson. But it is the well-travelled Paul Roscairne who holds her interest from their first encounter at a country horse race. The treatment of Aborigines on northern stations, kangaroo hunts, and lovers' misunderstandings follow, but most shocking is the return of scheming father, Wild Craven ... Rather than submit to his blackmail she leaves Yalanga and works alone in Melbourne, Paul never ceasing to search for her. She is injured in a fire saving a child and reconciliation follows before she dies. (PB)
1 'Vivienne': A Story of Australia Karuna , 1885 single work novel From a Murray River homestead, elderly Ellinore Frankland recalls her youth in Kent and her intense love for Vivian Earle who seemed to return it until he fell in love with her younger sister Lucy. Lucy died in childbirth two years later and Vivian several months after on the Irish hunting fields, leaving Ellinore to bring up their daughter Vivienne. After her father's death Ellinor took V. to East Melbourne to live with her brother Robert, and soon they met the Herndales, old friends of Ellinore's mother. V. goes to their station on a visit and meets the handsome flirtatious George Herndale, who seems genially indifferent until a rich personable rival attaches himself to her, when he asks V. to marry him. Aside from the poisonous barbs of his 'old friend' Miss Darrell all goes well until the beautiful Adelaide Lindsay appears at a ball. George comes to love her and V. senses all, finally committing secret suicide as a sacrifice to set them free. Strong sense of narrator as 'watcher'.
1 A Tale That is Told Karuna , 1881 single work novel
1 An Every-Day Young Man (after Gilbert and Sullivan) i "Conceive him if you can,", Laura Murrell , 1881 single work poetry
— Appears in: The Leader , 3 September 1881; (p. 25) The Australian Town and Country Journal , 8 October vol. 24 no. 613 1881; (p. 701)
X