Henry Handel Richardson : Short Biography

Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson’s life proved a rich source for her fiction. She set her first novel Maurice Guest (1908) in Leipzig, where she had studied and met her husband. The Getting of Wisdom (1910) mirrors her time as a boarder at the Presbyterian Ladies College. Her third novel, The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney (1930), which established her international reputation, charts the life of a character who owes much to her Irish father, a medical doctor who became mentally ill and died when she was only nine years old. her final novel, The Young Cosima appeared in 1939, while her unfinished memoir, Myself When Young appeared posthumously in 1948.

This Chronicle has been adapted by kind permission of the Aisling Society. The content has been inspired by the Aisling 20/20 Vision project, which forms part of a programme marking the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the Consulate General of Ireland to New South Wales. 

The Aisling Society is an Irish Australian cultural society whose main interests are the study of the history, life, and culture of Ireland, and the effect of Irish heritage on Australian life.