Henry Handel Richardson

Michael Ackland is the author of Henry Kendall: the Man and the Myths and Damaged Men: the Precarious Lives of James McAuley and Harold Stewart. He was educated in Australia and Germany, where he attended secondary school and studied German literature at the University of Cologne. Currently he is Head of the English Department at Monash University.

• Prologue; 1. Blood lines; 2. The whirlpool of destiny; 3. Trauma and its fictions; 4. Whatever happened at PLC?; 5. Love and music in Leipzig; 6. 'A failure all round'; 7. The Continent to the rescue; 8. Reappraising England; 9. A denizen of many worlds; 10. Winds of change; 11. Blackout; 12. Towards the next room.

'The private life and personality of Ethel Florence Richardson has an enduring fascination. This is partly because, under the pseudonym Henry Handel Richardson, she wrote one the few great Australian novels of the twentieth century, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. Equally enticing to readers and critics is the intertwining in her work of biography, autobiography and fiction. The author herself, who fiercely and sometimes mischievously guarded her privacy, was her own unreliable witness. This substantial and satisfying biography by Michael Ackland brings new discoveries and insights, most notably from Richardson's European years when the would-be musician changed course to become a writer. This is an important work, astute and persuasively argued.' Brenda Niall, award-winning biographer