AustLit

'In “Twenty-Six Years Ago: or, the Diggings from ’55,” published in The Australian Journal (1882-83), Waif Wander (Mary Fortune’s pen name) provides an autobiographical account of an unconventional woman’s life on the Australian goldfields. This article seeks to stress the unconventionality of Mary Fortune’s memoirs, written beyond norms of genre and gender, in order to contribute to their re-evaluation. It addresses Fortune’s exclusion from the Australian literary histories as well as her eccentric and marginal way of life.' (Publication abstract)

'Although Ada Cambridge is a major writer of the colonial period, she has long been neglected in Australian literary history. Her serial novel 'A Woman's Friendship', published in the Melbourne paper 'The Age' (August-October 1889), was widely read and circulated and, as such, offered a way in the social and gender debates of the time. This paper aims to reflect on Cambridge's ambivalent representation of female characters and gender issues in the 1880s Australian society, oscillating between convergence and divergence with conventions, and between conformism and radicalism.' (Publication abstract)