Biography

Pen Portraits: Women writers and journalists in nineteenth century Australia by Patricia Clarke

Item: Pen Portraits
Author: Elizabeth Webby

by Elizabeth Webby •

December 1988, no. 107

Allen and Unwin, 289 pp, $29.95 hb

Biography

Pen Portraits: Women writers and journalists in nineteenth century Australia by Patricia Clarke

by Elizabeth Webby •

December 1988, no. 107

About ten years ago, I was asked to give a talk to a Sydney group of Australian writers. (Actually, they asked Leonie Kramer, but she was busy.) I decided to talk on ‘Some unknown Australian women writers of the nineteenth century’ in ‘the hope of interesting some of them in researching the lives and careers of their predecessors.

Elizabeth Webby

Elizabeth Webby AM FAHA, was Professor of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney from 1990 until her retirement in March 2007. Her publications include Early Australian Poetry (1982), Colonial Voices (1989), Modern Australian Plays (1990), The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature (2000) and, as joint editor, Happy Endings (1987), Goodbye to Romance (1989), The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads (1993), Australian Feminism: A Companion (1998), and the Academy Edition of Rolf Boldrewood’s Robbery Under Arms (2006). She was a contributing editor, responsible for the 19^thcentury material, for the PEN Macquarie Anthology of Australian Literature (2009).