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Gertrude, the emigrant : a tale of colonial life / Louisa Atkinson ; edited by Elizabeth Lawson
Bib ID 339405
Format BookBook
Author
Atkinson, Louisa, 1834-1872
 
Description Canberra : School of English and Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, University College, ADFA, in association with Mulini Press, 1998. 
lxiv, 376 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. 
ISBN 0731703634 
Series

Colonial texts series (Kensington, N.S.W.) ; 6.

Summary

Gertrude, the Emigrant: A Tale of Colonial Life (1857) was the first Australian novel written by a native-born woman and the first to be illustrated by its author. Published a few years after Catherine Spence's Clara Morison (1854), Gertrude also follows that novel in its story of a young immigrant heroine making a life in a colony which is itself in the making. The novel draws on authorial and family memories to summon the harsh, more complex, convict worlds of Sutton Forest, the Shoalhaven and Sydney in the late 1830s and 1840s. Binding her novel together with a conventional romance - and a muder mystery - this journalist-writer cannot avoid a wandering mode of picaresque which allows her recording eye free play. The chief value of Gertrude, the Emigrant rests today in its fresh, detailed documentation of regional history and its fine, evocative descriptions of lands and forests now lost. Written from a perspective as interested in domestic life as bush adventures, this is a novel which refuses to understand Australian colonial as English life transported elsewhere.

Notes

First published: Sydney : J.R. Clarke, 1857.

"Checklist of Atkinson's works"--p. 362-366.

Includes bibliographical references (p. lv-lxii).

Subjects Immigrants - Australia - Fiction.  |  New South Wales - History - Fiction.
Form/genre Historical fiction.
Other authors/contributors Lawson, Elizabeth, 1940-  |  Australian Defence Force Academy. Australian Scholarly Editions Centre  |  Australian Defence Force Academy. School of English
Available From University and Reference Publisher's Services, 22-32 King St, Randwick NSW 2031 

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    Members of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Maori communities are advised that this catalogue contains names and images of deceased people. All users of the catalogue should also be aware that certain words, terms or descriptions may be culturally sensitive and may be considered inappropriate today, but may have reflected the author's/creator's attitude or that of the period in which they were written.