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'I shall tell just such stories as I please' : Mary Fortune and the Australian Journal
Wollongong
:
2011
10491616
2011
single work
thesis
Examines Mary Fortune's writing in the Australian Journal between 1865 and 1885.
Works about this Work
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Mary Helena Fortune : An Independent Fly in the Webs of Victorian Society
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Brno Studies in English , vol. 45 no. 1 2019; (p. 129-142)'Mary Helena Fortune (c. 1833–1909) was a pioneer Australian crime fiction writer. At a time when marriage and domesticity still largely defined women's lives, in her autobiographical journalism Fortune freely admitted to being selffinancing. She claimed that her tea tasted better when she remembered that she has "earned every penny of the money that bought it." It was unusual for a Victorian woman. And as her memoirs and journalistic prose testify, Fortune was anything but usual. The story of her life, her writing, her husbands, sons and lovers is extraordinary, and was potentially dangerous for Fortune, given the hypocritical morals of the time. Thus, being fully aware of the webs the Victorian society set for independent flies, Fortune wrote under a pseudonym of Waif Wander which sheltered her, and protected her income. Her memoirs, partly fictionalised, a common Victorian genre, reveal an extraordinary woman and extraordinary times in Australian history.' (Publication abstract)
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Negotiating the Colonial Australian Popular Fiction Archive
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue vol. 11 no. 1 2011; (p. 1-12) 'There is an identifiable 'archive' of colonial Australian popular fiction consisting of romance, adventure fiction, Gothic fiction, crime fiction, Lemurian fantasy and a significant number of related subgenres (bushranger fiction, convict romance, Pacific or 'South Sea' adventure, tropical romance, 'lost explorer' stories, and so on). Looking at this archive soon reveals both its sheer size and range, and the fact that so little of it is remembered today. Rachael Weaver, Ailie Smith and I have begun to build a digital archive of colonial Australian popular fiction with the primary aim of making this material available to an interested reading public, as well as to scholars specialising in colonial Australian (and transnational) literary studies. At the time of writing we are really only about 20% complete with around 500 authors represented on the site, although many with only a fraction of their work uploaded and with only the bare bones of a scholarly apparatus around them: a few short biographical notes, a bibliography, and the texts themselves: first editions in most cases.' (Author's introduction, p. 1)
-
Negotiating the Colonial Australian Popular Fiction Archive
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue vol. 11 no. 1 2011; (p. 1-12) 'There is an identifiable 'archive' of colonial Australian popular fiction consisting of romance, adventure fiction, Gothic fiction, crime fiction, Lemurian fantasy and a significant number of related subgenres (bushranger fiction, convict romance, Pacific or 'South Sea' adventure, tropical romance, 'lost explorer' stories, and so on). Looking at this archive soon reveals both its sheer size and range, and the fact that so little of it is remembered today. Rachael Weaver, Ailie Smith and I have begun to build a digital archive of colonial Australian popular fiction with the primary aim of making this material available to an interested reading public, as well as to scholars specialising in colonial Australian (and transnational) literary studies. At the time of writing we are really only about 20% complete with around 500 authors represented on the site, although many with only a fraction of their work uploaded and with only the bare bones of a scholarly apparatus around them: a few short biographical notes, a bibliography, and the texts themselves: first editions in most cases.' (Author's introduction, p. 1)
-
Mary Helena Fortune : An Independent Fly in the Webs of Victorian Society
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Brno Studies in English , vol. 45 no. 1 2019; (p. 129-142)'Mary Helena Fortune (c. 1833–1909) was a pioneer Australian crime fiction writer. At a time when marriage and domesticity still largely defined women's lives, in her autobiographical journalism Fortune freely admitted to being selffinancing. She claimed that her tea tasted better when she remembered that she has "earned every penny of the money that bought it." It was unusual for a Victorian woman. And as her memoirs and journalistic prose testify, Fortune was anything but usual. The story of her life, her writing, her husbands, sons and lovers is extraordinary, and was potentially dangerous for Fortune, given the hypocritical morals of the time. Thus, being fully aware of the webs the Victorian society set for independent flies, Fortune wrote under a pseudonym of Waif Wander which sheltered her, and protected her income. Her memoirs, partly fictionalised, a common Victorian genre, reveal an extraordinary woman and extraordinary times in Australian history.' (Publication abstract)
Australian Literary Studies
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- The Australian Journal 1865 periodical (900 issues)
- The Tressless Bride 1868 single work short story
- The Last Scene 1870 single work short story
