Author Description

Volume 2 of a three volume set containing Henry Handel Richardson's correspondence in its entirety. The publication of Henry Handel Richardson's correspondence will be a major event in Australian scholarly publishing. It will be the first time any Australian literary writer has had his/her correspondence published in its entirety. The letters of Henry Handel Richardson - deposited in the National Library of Australia in Canberra and in the Mitchell Library in Sydney - were opened in March 1996 to unrestricted access, after a fifty-year period of closed access. The executrix of the HHR estate has determined, however, that none of the letters may be published in whole or in part until after Probyn and Steele's edition of the complete correspondence has been released. At present, there are approximately 1800 unpublished manuscript letters to and from HHR, of which at least 1000 are in her own hand. They form a correspondence between Australia, England, German, Italy and the USA for the period 1874 to 1946. Within the total number there are two quite distinct and major sub-groups, the first (1910 - 14) being a collection of both sides of the correspondence between HHR and the French translator of Maurice Guest, Paul Solanges; the second (1911 - 46) letters between HHR and Mary A. Kernot of Melbourne. As well as the letters held in the National and Mitchell libraries, the editors possess an entire sequence of letters from William Heinemann to HHR and her husband John George Robertson detailing the publication history of Ultima Thule, the final volume of The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney, the trilogy which cemented her international reputation. They are adding to the collection almost monthly, but have reason to believe that about 90% of the extant letters are now in their possession. The letters, as might be expected, shed much new light on HHR's biography, her artistic methods,