The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson - ISBN: 9781921922282
Paperback
Restless search for meaning takes Mahony from wealth to madness.

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony

$20.72

  • Paperback

    952 pages

  • Release Date

    26 April 2012

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Summary

He had never got within measurable distance of what he called life, at all…deep down in him, he knew, was an enormous residue of vitality…It was like a buried treasure, jealously kept for the event of his one day catching up with life: not the bare scramble for a living that here went by that name, but Life with a capital L.

Richard Mahony is a restless man. Ballarat, England, Melbourne, Europe, the bush: elsewhere is always better.

Searching for a place, a meaning, a life, Ma…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9781921922282
ISBN-10:1921922281
Author:Henry Handel Richardson
Publisher:Text Publishing
Imprint:Text Classics
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:952
Release Date:26 April 2012
Weight:664g
Dimensions:96mm x 198mm x 132mm
Series:Text Classics
What They're Saying

Critics Review

’ The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a masterpiece, a great novel. Reading it was one of the most fulfilling literary experiences I’ve ever had.’

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a masterpiece, a great novel. Reading it was one of the most fulfilling literary experiences I’ve ever had.’ – Angela Meyer, LiteraryMinded
‘More than any other novel in our literature, more than Voss, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony deserves the accolade of the Great Australian Novel… it is a mighty and moving work, this bursting at the seams anti-epic to the muse of a vanity which sees every golden bowl broken and every silver cord loosed.’ – Peter Craven

About The Author

Henry Handel Richardson

Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson was born into an affluent Melbourne family in 1870. Her father Walter was a doctor of medicine. When Richardson was nine he died of syphilis after being admitted to Melbourne’s Kew mental asylum. His illness and suffering had a huge impact on his family.

After his death, Richardson’s mother took her children to Maldon where she worked as the postmistress. Richardson was sent to board at the Presbyterian Ladies College in 1883—an experience that provided material for her novel The Getting of Wisdom. At school she developed into a talented pianist and tennis player.

In 1888, she travelled to Europe with her mother and studied at the Leipzig Conservatorium where she met John George Robertson, a Scottish expert in German literature. The pair married and settled in London. She published her first novel, Maurice Guest, in 1908. She took the pen name of Henry Handel Richardson and used it for all of her books.

Richardson made her only journey back to Australia in 1912 to complete her research for the trilogy that would become The Fortunes of Richard Mahony. Her final novel The Young Cosima appeared in 1939. Henry Handel Richardson died in Sussex in 1946.

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