Henry Handel Richardson was born on 3 January 1870 in Fitzroy, Melbourne. She was given the name Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, but assumed the nom-de-plume of Henry Handel for the same reasons as George Eliot: she felt that a woman was disadvantaged in the literary world and had better prospects of success under a male name. Richardson was initially educated by a governess and then attended the Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne from 1883 to 1887. She left Australia as a young woman to spend time in Britain and Germany, and only returned to Australia once for a brief visit. She became engaged in Germany and married John George Robertson on 30 December 1895 in Dublin. She died on 20 March 1946.
Richardson wrote articles and translated two novels from Danish into English. Also incidental to her oeuvre are three short stories and an autobiography, but she is included in the Australian canon for her novels: Maurice Guest (1908), The Getting of Wisdom (1910), the trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930) and The Young Cosima (1939). Richardson’s work has come under many descriptions. Her work has been seen as realist, though this has been challenged by critics who see her work as either romantic or heavily influenced by European naturalism.
Of all her works, there are two that stand out for critical attention. The first is The Getting of Wisdom; the second is The Fortunes of Richard Mahony which comprises three novels: Australia Felix (1917), The Way Home (1925) and Ultima Thule (1929).
The Getting of Wisdom was Richardson’s personal favourite, and her most closely ‘autobiographical’ novel. It is a school story set in a ladies’ college, covering the main character’s coming of age into womanhood. At the time of its publication reception was mixed, with some reviewers expressing admiration for its realism and honesty, while others questioned the morality of the story and called it a “libel on Australian girlhood” because the main character was not wholesome in both thoughts and deeds. The novel is Richardson’s portrait of an artist as a young girl, showing an ordinary Australian girl’s decision between conforming to the mores of the times or allowing her creativity to run free.
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is her major work and the three volumes that comprise it were published as a trilogy in 1930 after some minor editing. This is Richardson’s epic narrative of gold fields and nation-building, set in Ballarat during the gold rush of the 1850s. A complex work, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony contains many themes: marriage, money, what ‘home’ means, death, and nationality.
Richardson’s first novel Maurice Guest remains popular, and centres on one of Richardson’s main themes: romantic love. In this novel, sexual love and romance are obsessive and destructive, completely unlike the positive portrait of marriage to be found in The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. The Getting of Wisdom sketches the idea of lesbian love as an escape from the restrictions of heterosexual marriage, and a homosexual relationship is also contained in The Young Cosima.