AustLit

'...When Lucy Sussex's own clever detective work revealed that the pseudynoms of W.W. and Waif Wander belonged to Fortune, an exciting chapter in colonial literary history was opened. Sussex has demonstrated convincingly that Fortune's output was prodigious: the sheer volume of her contributions published in the Australian Journal between 1865 and 1908 demands recognition, as does their quality. This essay argues that in addition to the pseudonyms identified by Sussex, at least one other set of works in the Australian Journal were written by Fortune, If, as I suggest, this work is Fortune's, it effectively doubles the number of urban observations written by her and published in the Australian Journal, and further underlines her importance in colonial literary history and women's history.' (from Author's introduction)