'The eponymous doctor is best known as Richard Mahony, father of Henry Handel Richardson (H. H. R) and the key character in her epic trilogy. Bruce Steele, a Richardson specialist from Monash University, has drawn on a wide variety of sources for this portrait of the figure behind the fiction. It traces Richardson's life from his birth in Dublin in 1825, to Bristol and on to Edinburgh, where he qualified as a doctor; migration to Victoria during the gold rush; marriage and children (including daughter Ethel; that is, H. H. R.); fortune, travel and financial ruin (mining investments); and mental decline and death.' (Publisher's blurb)
