Henry Handel Richardson
HENRY HANDEL RICHARDSON was born Ethel Richardson in Melbourne in 1870. Her marked musical skill decided her mother on removal to Germany, enabling Ethel to pursue her studies in Leipzig. Though the majority of her sexual orientation was lesbian, she married a Scots scholar of German, John Robertson, in 1894. Her first novel, Maurice Guest, based on her experiences in Germany, was published in 1908, after they had moved to London. There followed a classic short novel of coming of age, The Getting of Wisdom, in 1910, and her acclaimed trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, between 1917 and 1929. Her short works were published in 1934, and her final novel of the life of Cosima Wagner, The Young Cosima, in 1939. She died of cancer in 1946, at the age of 76.
